David Dao, passenger removed from United flight, a doctor with troubled past
David Dao, the Elizabethtown doctor who was yanked off an overbooked United Airlines flight Sunday, has had a troubled history in Kentucky.
Dao, who went to medical school in Vietnam in the 1970s before moving to the U.S., was working as a pulmonologist in Elizabethtown when he was arrested in 2003 and eventually convicted of drug-related offenses after an undercover investigation, according to documents filed with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure last June. The documents allege that he was involved in fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances and was sexually involved with a patient who used to work for his practice and assisted police in building a case against him.
Dao was convicted of multiple felony counts of obtaining drugs by fraud or deceit in November 2004 and was placed on five years of supervised probation in January 2005. He surrendered his medical license the next month.
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure permitted Dao to resume practicing medicine in 2015 under certain conditions.
http://www.courier-journal.com/stor.../?hootPostID=d36ec6c0be57d7c0080839c4936d4285
Ah, I see. So a piece of shit got removed from a shitty airline. Boo hoo.
Why would anyone care about his past?
For the same reason that the usual people seem to think that Trump had something to do with this.
You must not believe in private property, capitalism, or American Free Enterprise. Unless there is discrimination, a company can call police to force a customer to leave its premises. Why do you hate America? Fusion Center, are you following this?
Finally...a post I actually agree with you on. Even if you were being sarcastic with your post, you're still correct on this issue.
Full disclosure: I haven't seen the video, nor do I care to. I read about the gist of it, but since I haven't been on a plane since 2013, then this is irrelevant to me. And my family all flies Alaska Airlines anyway, and we've always had excellent experiences with them.
That being said....and I can't believe I'm saying this....but
@jlprk is absolutely right. Everyone signs something before they get their ticket, and if you read the small print, it essentially says that the airline can remove you for basically any reason, without notice or explanation, and may refuse service to you for any reason they deem necessary. Their property, their airline, their company. They can refuse service to you at any time, just like a mini-mart gas station can refuse service to you for something as simple as not wearing a shirt.
They didn't violate his rights. This wasn't racially motivated, so he can't claim discrimination (and you can disagree with that all you want, but the FACTS are that there is NO proof that they racially discriminated against him; so such a claim is irrelevant here), and you have no protected "Right" to use a service provided by a private company, because it is a CHOICE to use their service, and them providing the service also means that they can terminate the service at any time, for any reason. Thus, it is not a "protected Right". You have no rights once you are on the private property of a business, besides non-discrimination. You have no freedom to move where you want, you have no freedom to say what you want...none of that. The client makes the rules; in this case, the Airline. Period.
You can call that cold and corporate bullshit all you want. But those are the facts, as they have always been, and they are NOT going to change. If you don't like it, don't use the service. It really is that simple. People seem to think that they are entitled to certain privileges (or what THEY like to think of as "Rights") just because they pay for something. WRONG. You are entitled to shit, and the private entity always has the final say in the product that you willingly purchase from them; regardless of how much money you spend on their product.
Now....I completely agree that United dropped the ball in a bombastic fashion here. 100% of this is on them. BUT....this passenger doesn't have a leg to stand on in any kind of lawsuit, and if his so-called "lawyer" had any kind of morals, he'd tell his client exactly that. Oh sure, he MIGHT get a very small reimbursement or out-of-court settlement....but the "millions of dollars" fantasy? Not gonna happen.
The bottom line here is this: he was told to leave the plane, they gave him numerous opportunities to leave the private property of the airline (the plane), and he refused. The next step is to summon the proper authorities....which the airline did....and he was removed. HOW he was removed is irrelevant. A non-cooperative passenger must be removed by any means necessary within the law. Which he was.
And that's another thing....people seem to think that the authorities/LE/security is just supposed to be as passive as possible with someone who is refusing to leave when ordered to do so. So to those simple-minded people who seem to think that is the case (and they usually base their logic or rational on emotions, instead of reason), I'd like to know what your answer is for how they're supposed to handle this.
Should they keep asking the guy? And if he keeps refusing, what then? Ask him some more? How long are they supposed to stand there and ask him? 1 hour? 2? 4? 8?
They can't pepper-spray him because of the close proximity to other passengers, and the fact that it's a very enclosed place. And never-mind the fact that it wouldn't look any better, and you would still be bitching and moaning about it if the headlines were "police pepper-spray elderly doctor on United flight".
If they grab his arm to escort him off the plane, and he pulls back, are they supposed to just...what? Let him go?
"Certain people" on this forum seem to get really emotional about that particular issue....and yet, I've not met one of those people who can explain to me, reasonably and rationally, what another alternative is at that moment in time for how such a situation with a unruly passenger is supposed to be handled by the authorities in question. Not. One.
Like it or not, those are the facts. Again....United fucked all of this up, and we all agree that this could have been avoided with far better planning ahead of time; especially by making their employees take another flight or drive to their destination. No argument there.
But poor planning is NOT a crime. Refusing the lawful orders of Federally-protected Law Enforcement, security, or TSA is.
And don't let the fact that the officer in question is on leave fool you. That is standard procedure for most instances of this nature. He's not going to lose his job, and I guarantee you he'll be back in no time at all.
The bottom line is that United will go on functioning no problem. In the long run, a billion dollars is nothing to them. Come the holiday season, people will spend anything if it means getting to their destination. You think the American people are going to think "oh wait...that doctor got dragged off of a flight earlier this year, so maybe I should take an extra 5 days out of my vacation time to drive somewhere, rather than spending just 5 hours on United?"
Nope. This is America. The land of snowflakes and hypocrites. This will be last week's drama soon, and people will forget about this and find something else to complain about...and then fly United to their next destination.
This incident will pass as easily as his out-of-court settlement. If he's lucky enough to get one.
