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A United Airlines Pilot Who Was Wrongfully Arrested In an Airport Hotel Finally Got Some Justice. Here's Why Every Business Traveler Should Know His Story
I wrote last month about the 7 incredibly smart hotel tricks every business traveler should know.
Add to that body of knowledge something else: the story of a United Airlines pilot whose strange, horrible experience in a Denver hotel finally reached some kind of a happy ending.
United Airlines pilot Andrew Collins was arrested in Denver for indecent exposure in September 2018, after he allegedly walked around his Westin airport hotel room in the nude for 20 minutes, while talking on the phone.
By all accounts, Collins thought he was alone and that nobody could see him.
However, he failed to realize that with the curtains to his room at the airport Westin Hotel open, people in the airport terminal across the way could see inside.
Things quickly took a turn for the worse.
'Put your hands where I can see them'
"The concourse windows are tinted green and are opaque and reflective," his attorney later explained. "It's like looking at a green wall or a green mirror."
All of which should have led to no more than a slightly embarrassing anecdote -- except that somebody called the police. And Collins soon faced law enforcement officers with guns drawn.
He was arrested, faced a tawdry criminal charge, and held overnight in jail. The city refused to drop the charges.
(I embedded a six-minute police body camera video of his arrest, here.) Finally a judge dismissed the case in March.
Collins sued the city of Denver. And this week, we learned, he reached a settlement of his lawsuit: $300,000 for wrongful arrest, according to local television station KMGH.
'Every day without fail'
Honestly, that sounds low to me for what this poor guy went through. While all this was pending, he was reportedly suspended for six months from United Airlines.
A campaign he was in to become a union president (ironically, the subject of the phone call he was on while walking around absent-mindedly in the buff), fell apart.
Even now, he told another local television station, Fox 31, that he deals with the situation constantly.
"I have to explain this situation every day without fail," Collins said. "I have been tagged by Homeland Security, anytime I get back into the country I am pulled aside and asked if I have been in trouble with the law."
His legal moves might not be done, however. His lawyer says he's considering suing the Westin for allowing police without a warrant -- while also adding he hopes to donate at least some of his legal winnings to the Innocence Project, "having known now what it is like to be falsely accused."
If you're a business traveler
Now, I hope the exact contours of this story aren't anything that would ever concern you as a business traveler.
But there's a tendency for some business travelers to consider their travel (at least some of it) to be a sort of "time out from life," where things don't really count.
For some, maybe they overindulge a bit eating or drinking. For some, maybe they're just a little more spendthrift or absent-minded or jet-lagged and not thinking clearly, as Collins seems to have been.
For others, well, you can use your imagination.
(If you haven't seen the story of the three Indiana judges who attended a conference together -- one that wound up allegedly involving a drunken fight in the parking lot of a White Castle and a shooting that left two of the judges wounded (and all three judges suspended) -- it's worth a read.)
Point being: it does count. What happens in Denver, so to speak, doesn't stay in Denver.
I don't know who has to hear this, but when you're on the road, stay in control. Don't do things -- at least not too many things -- that you wouldn't feel okay doing at home.
Oh, and if the curtains in your hotel room don't close all the way, try using a hanger.

oldmako

Many here tried and convicted him the day it happened. Found guilty on all accounts with nothing more than innuendo, he was shamed and pilloried by his fellow pilots on a public forum.


300K for what he endured is woefully inadequate.

Learflyer

Having a little hotel room Situational Awareness could have saved this guy a little stress as well. Good god fella! Assume they can see in! 20 mins is an eternity. I'm on his side and supportive, but dang man!

Longball

It's not just that. It's the guns drawn, like it was a "real" crime circus that ensued, coupled with the body cam footage that was publicly released. 300k is a joke for what he went through, not to mention that his lawyer will most likely take 50-60% of that.

Andy

Yes, guns drawn was waayyy over the top. In addition, I think I read that he spent a couple of days in jail.
Even if one were to leap to the conclusion that this was a criminal act, there was no reason to incarcerate him.

GogglesPisano

Guns-drawn, SWAT tactics are now the norm for US law enforcement.

LeeFXDWG

There’s a time and place for what I saw on the body cam. This was neither!

I would have gone farther with the lawsuit given what this arrest causes him on a daily basis going forward. But the decision is his/his lawyers.

Hope he goes after the hotel.

All that said, I close my drapes as soon as I enter my room. Always have.

Lee

detpilot

I'm glad it happened and glad it turned out the way it did. So many people (even in our industry), turn a blind eye when this sort of thing happens to other, just as innocent, people. I'm glad we can all discuss police overreach with the common understanding that it can, indeed, happen to us too.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Grumble

Cops should’ve been fired.

They responded with more force then we were allowed in Afghanistan under much more lethal conditions. Cops seem to think they’re all door kickers now. Proportional response is not in their vocabulary and it’s time to fix that.

fanaticalflyer

He can go spend his money with his friend, the so-called "Gardener"!