There may very well be another part of this story that isn’t being told - specifically the woman’s story - the one everyone wants to call dumb because she wore flip flops on a flight. I have to laugh because after the San Bernardino slaughter, Penn Station in NY was awash with soldiers and constant alerts “If you see something, say something.” At the time I thought, Yeah, and if I say something that turns out to be a mistake, I’m spread across the New York Post as a racist, sexist, bigoted homophobic.
I blame the airlines who after 20 years of this stuff, can’t figure out how to quietly and quickly decide whether someone is a threat or not.
I live in a remote rural area, where most people don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of them-flip flops in public would be an improvement over the bare feet or mud-and-cow/goat s*** caked boots seen in the general store...
When my husband was in the military and traveled, civilian flight crews were very polite, quiet and circumspect in determining the seriousness of an incident like the one described-they even managed to keep things calm if there was a threat of a hijacking or other crime-I guess maybe the airlines just instruct them to go into panic mode immediately now...
If I lived in a city now, my first thought about that see something, say something admonition would be the same as yours-why would I want to look like a racist?