Originally Posted by
Mesabah
I don't think you understand the issue here, Delta is a corporation that can deny travel to anyone without due process. If the airline doesn't know someone is a safety threat, they are blind to possible incidents such as this.
This guy turned himself into the FBI in November saying he was going to do this.
No, the guy didn't say anything like that to the FBI at all.
From the Buzzfeed article linked above:
"Piro said Santiago had voluntarily walked into the FBI’s Anchorage office in November and spoke to agents there, though he did not go into detail as to why the 26-year-old went to the FBI.
“He clearly stated that he did not intend to harm anyone, however his erratic behavior concerned FBI agents interviewing him and contacted local police and turned him over to them,” Piro said.
Santiago was then taken to a medical facility for a mental health evaluation, but Piro said it was unclear what happened to the Anchorage man afterward."
The FBI has no right to notify airlines about potentially dangerous people unless they follow the applicable law. Given that Santiago insisted to the FBI that he had no intention of harming anyone, that would have extinguished the FBI's authority at that time.
The FBI was concerned enough, however, to turn him over to local law enforcement to ensure he received an evaluation for mental illness, which fell within local law enforcement's jurisdiction, not the FBI's.
Under many states' gun laws, if a gun owner is determined to be mentally ill and a danger to others, their gun licenses can be suspended and their guns confiscated, but that's a matter of state law, not Federal law, and I don't know whether Alaska has a "SAFE Act".
'Tis many a slip twixt cup and lip: this appears to be one of them, but not due to any fault or failure of the FBI, at least from what's been disclosed so far.