A white mother is suing Southwest Airlines after flight attendants called the police and accused her of trafficking her biracial daughter. Lawyers representing Mary MacCarthy filed the lawsuit on August 3 with the U.S. District Court in Colorado, claiming the company's employees racially profiled her and her daughter, Moira, per PEOPLE.
On October 22, 2021, MacCarthy and Moira, who was 10 at the time, took a flight from Los Angeles to Denver to attend the funeral of MacCarthy's brother, who suddenly passed. When the family stepped off the plane, the single mother told FOX 31 at the time police confronted her at Denver International Airport.
That's when she learned a Southwest employee allegedly reported MacCarthy for child trafficking based on a "racist assumption about a mixed‐race family," according to the lawsuit.
“I took out my phone and started recording,” she said back in 2021. "I have a three-minute video in which I pretty much tell them my life story."
Police allowed the family to leave after questioning, but the incident didn't end there. MacCarthy said an investigator with Denver police's human trafficking unit called her days later about reports from both the department and Southwest.
According to the reports, Southwest alleges MacCarthy and Moira couldn't find seats together on the connecting flight and requested to swap seats with other passengers. Employees also claim she didn't let Moira speak with flight attendants, while police state MacCarthy refused to give them information.
Now, the mother is taking legal action due to the "emotional distress" Southwest inflicted with its "blatant racism," as the filing states. The lawsuit also aims "bring some accountability to the airline and cause them to re-examine their training and policies," David Lane, MacCarthy's attorney, wrote in a statement sent to PEOPLE.
"I want Southwest Airlines and the Denver police to be held accountable for what is undoubtedly a case of racial profiling involving a 10-year-old Black girl, who was already suffering the worst day in her life — a death in her family," MacCarthy said, per PEOPLE.
Reporters also reached out to Southwest for comment, and a representative replied, “We don’t have anything to add right now on this pending litigation.”
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