Black woman arrested after complaining about vomit on her daughter's airline seat

A black woman has been filmed being arrested after she discovered vomit on her daughter’s seat while on a Frontier Airlines plane.

Rosetta Swinney’s confrontations with a flight attendant, security and eventually the police were filmed by fellow passenger Nikki Nickole, who posted them on Facebook.

The video shows Swinney arguing with airline staff after she complained of the vomit, and a subsequent video shows her being deplaned and arrested at the McCarran International Airport terminal in Las Vegas, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

She was charged with misdemeanour trespassing.

Swinney's daugher witnessed her arrest

In the accompanying caption posted by Nickole, she said the vomit had gotten on Swinney’s 14-year-old daughter’s backpack and hand. At this point, Swinney asked the flight attendant to clean it up and to move her to a different seat.

According to Nickole, the attendant told Swinney “it’s not her job”. She wrote:

The plane  has been deboarded because there was vomit 🤮 in a passengers daughters seat. THIS WAS NOT THE PASSENGER NOR HER DAUGHTERS BODILY FLUIDS! This had been left UNCLEANED from a prior flight! The vomit got on her daughters backpack and her hand as a result of trying to place the backpack under her seat. Her mom mentions this to the unnamed flight attendant (she refused to give her name) who then refused to clean up the vomit because “it’s not her job” and instead handed the passenger a Clorox wipe to clean it up herself. Then says “she use the restroom to wash her hands”.

The passenger refuses to clean someone else’s vomit so the attendant says “fine, you’re rude and you don’t have to fly with us tonight” and asks her to leave. She responds “No, I have to work and I paid over $700 for our tickets”

*Keep in mind there is an entire row (3) of empty seats in front of us. The attendant could have simply switched their seats and asked someone to come cleanup the vomit.*

The flight attendant calls security. Security comes, they ask her to leave and she refuses again. Security calls metro police who then comes and ask her to leave. She refuses again and then everyone is forced to deplane.

The police were called when Swinney refused to leave the plane

The airline disputes Swinney’s claim and told The Review-Journal that the flight attendant had apologised and "immediately invited the mother and her teenage daughter to move to either end of the plane".

“The mother and daughter were also told that once boarding was complete they would be provided other seats if available,” the statement said. “The daughter was also offered cleaning products for herself and invited to use the lavatory to wash up.”

The airline said that Swinney was “unsatisfied with the response and became disruptive,” prompting a flight attendant to ask her to leave the flight.

“The mother refused, and following procedure, law enforcement was called,” the airline concluded.

Swinney told WTVD that she was held in a cell for 12 hours and her daughter was taken into protective custody until she was released.

She told the station: “What really hurt me is for my child to see me getting handcuffed and taken away from her.

Twelve hours I was in jail. Twelve hours. [My daughter] jumped up to say, ‘Mum! My hands are wet.’ She smelled it. She says ‘this is vomit, mom.’ So we went to look. It was on the bag, all over her shirt, her hands.

Swinney, 53, who works for Walmart as a pharmacy technician, has hired a civil rights attorney for her trespassing charge.

You can watch the videos of the incident, below:

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