Southwest employee accused white mom with Black daughter of human trafficking

A white mother and her Black daughter were reportedly confronted by a Southwest Airlines employee and two police officers after a flight attendant flagged her for possible human trafficking.

Mary MacCarthy and her 10-year-old daughter Moira were flying from Los Angeles to Denver in late October after receiving news that MacCarthy’s brother died, NBC News reported. After the two landed at the Denver airport, they were pulled aside on the jet bridge by a Southwest employee and two Denver police officers. 

The flight attendant told police she was suspicious of MacCarthy because they boarded the plane last and asked to swap seats with other passengers so they could sit next to each other, according to NBC. The flight attendant also said that she didn’t see the two speak while on the flight and claimed that MacCarthy told Moira not to speak to the plane’s crew, NBC noted. 

“They said, ‘We’re talking to you because you and your daughter were reported for suspicious behavior,'” MacCarthy told NBC of the moment the Southwest employee and police officers pulled them aside. “That’s when everything clicked in my brain. I’ve been a mother to a biracial child for 10 years, I’m aware of racial profiling.” 

MacCarthy said she took video of the exchange in which Moira can be heard crying. 

“Throughout the encounter, my daughter was sobbing, and I told them, ‘Look, we’re traveling for a death and she’s a Black girl who’s 10 but looks much older than she is. She unfortunately already has had charged encounters with police. Any kid’s going to be scared in a situation like this,'” she said. 

MacCarthy said she also got a call 10 days after the flight from a human trafficking unit investigator with the Denver police, following up on the Southwest employee’s suspicions, NBC reported.

She said that Moira now “clams up” when the incident comes up and that her family has been left “deeply traumatized by the assumption that just because we don’t have the same skin color we’re involved in a very serious crime.” 

MacCarthy is demanding an apology from Southwest and has yet to receive one, though the airline provided a statement to NBC in which they said they are conducting an internal review of the incident. 

“We were disheartened to learn of this mother’s account when traveling with her daughter,” the statement read. “We are conducting a review of the situation internally, and will be reaching out to the customer to address her concerns and offer our apologies for her experience traveling with us.”