EURweb is reporting that Deshon Marman is telling his side of the story that got him booted from a US Airways flight last Thursday for reportedly refusing to pull up his sagging pants.
Marman first told ABC that he wanted to apologize to all of the passengers who had been disrupted from their travel plans, because he never thought this incident surrounding his pajama bottoms would have escalated to this point. But he felt he was a paying passenger who didn't present any cause to be removed from the plane. He told reporters that a flight attendant asked him to leave his seat, and then the pilot asked for his boarding pass.
But Marman refused to de-plane, and the situation escalated with Marman and the pilot, which resulted in the pilot making a citizen's arrest. Marman said, "I'm just like everybody else on this plane. I'm human, and the pilot said, 'No, you're not. You're not like everybody else.' "
Marman is on a full athletic scholarship at the University of New Mexico, where he was headed for summer football camp. The university has already printed a full statement of support for him and plans to stand behind him through it all.
We're glad he gave his side of the story. Prior stories made it seem as if he was wearing sagging jeans, when they were baggy pajama pants. We've seen plenty of passengers walking around in pajama pants.
We're not sure what the pilot meant when he said that Marman is not like everybody else. We interpret that to mean that he's a big black man with pajama pants on who needs to explain his existence. The entire episode is ludicrous and smacks of discrimination against the grieving player, who was returning from his close friend's funeral.
Again, we ask where is the dress code posted, and who is in charge of enforcing it? In the future, can we make citizen's arrests of passengers with poor hygiene, who wear see-through clothing without underwear or who walk around in foul-smelling socks?
Read more at EURweb.
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