this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
331 points (95.8% liked)
Not The Onion
22862 readers
827 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Public masturbation is illegal. The protocol is probably to inform the commander and law enforcement and ask the person to stop, and restraining him if he does not comply.
Yeah I suspect the "let him leave" wasn't down to United in this case, if law enforcement doesn't want to pick him up at deboarding they can't do much. Hopefully he gets charged, but it'd require the police to detain him on touchdown.
There is no reason they need to detain you to charge you.
Snagging him right at the arrival gate seems pretty reasonable, and certainly security has done so after flights for many various offenses in the past.
But yeah, at the very least they should know who the guy was and be able to provide information to the authorities in order to press charges.
Yeah that was my point, sorry if I expressed it badly. That he'll probably be charged, but detainment if warranted would have come down to the police picking him up, related to a criminal charge and independent of a civil case by United.
Well, that’s probably why they let him leave, nobody wants to touch that guy with a ten foot pole, let alone restrain him.
I doubt it was really ten foot, probably just a few inches
Pretty sure it was that. They could still have thrown some blankets on him and binded his wrists to the seat.
Flight attendants have duct taped people to seats in the past.
Yes, they duct tape people who pose a threat of death or serious injury to passengers and/or crew.
Someone with deficient stealth-jacking skills disgusts and offends passengers and crew, but doesn't threaten injury. Restraints are not justified.
There is a rather large community of people recording and storing radio communication between pilots and ATC. Chance are pretty good we'll hear whether the pilots requested law enforcement at the gate. If they failed to request law enforcement, that would be on the pilots and airline. If law enforcement failed to respond, that would be on the cops.
If you're hit with someone's spunk nonconsensually, I think that counts as injury or some approximate of that, legally.
It's certainly harm, and justified law enforcement intervention. But it's not a "open the emergency exit door in flight" level of harm. Nobody is threatened with death or grievous bodily harm here. Forceful intervention would increase that risk, rather than reducing it.
Harm and injury seem to be good enough reason to restrain. Dude could have gone into the bathroom and jacked it. Didn't have to do that in front of others, potentially including kids. Probably going to end up on a list and get sued.
Initiating a physical altercation to restrain him is more likely to result in injuries. I can't fault the crew for their decision not to restrain him.
I can fault them for not calling the cops.
I do think she would have been, if not "justified", then "excused" if she had tried to strike him, as his behavior would likely be considered inciting. And anything he did in response to having been struck would have justified restraining him.
But there would have to be some kind of physical altercation involving him before they could pull out the duct tape.
They definitely should have asked for a volunteer to swap seats with her. An air marshall could have arrested and handcuffed him.
Restraints would just be a new kink.
That's kinda fucked up for homeless people, if true
How often do you encounter homeless people on an airplane?
What do you mean?
Counterpoint: It's not a human need to goon or have sex in public.
It's a human need to have sex. But yeah, having sex in public should never be done.
What's probably happening here is some people hear "in public" and think it means "in public view" and not what it literally means, "not on private property open to the public"
Maybe, yeah
Yeah, a homeless person going at it in an alley, the woods, or somewhere else where they're clearly trying to be discreet is a huge difference from someone masturbating on shared transit next to someone
WTF? Really? Strongly disagree.
Restraining him is almost definitely not something the flight crew should attempt. Flight crew are not trained for this and could get injured. It could also easily escalate the situation and the last thing you want is a fight on board while in air. That could cause danger to the plane or other passengers. Asking him to stop and detaining him after landing would probably be the protocol.
Passenger handling is part of their training, including procedures to deal with deranged people
I am technically trained in CPR. You absolutely shouldn't rely on my CPR skills if there is another choice. Wrangling a deranged person is difficult even for people with ample training and experience (e.g. cops), let alone for flight crew with very basic training. If the person is not a danger to himself or others, there is no reason they would escalate the situation during flight.
"deranged" meaning "posing a physical threat to passengers and crew".
Stealth-jacking is certainly offensive, but it is a disgusting offense, not a threatening offense.