LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A mother boarding a flight says she was humiliated and arrested all because she noticed vomit near her seats.
The mom alerted Frontier flight attendants, but then she wound up in handcuffs.
Rosetta Swinney's daughter was crying next to her as her mother was placed in handcuffs, according to the video that captured the incident.
In that same cellphone video, you can hear Swinney yelling, "This is not right all of you have seen what happened on that plane."
Just moments earlier, the mother and daughter were on board a Frontier flight out of Las Vegas to North Carolina on Easter weekend.
Swinney told our affiliate station in North Carolina that she noticed vomit all over her daughter's bag and clothes and alerted the flight attendant to clean it up.
The Iead attendant then reportedly passed out gloves and wipes to Swinney along with instructions about cleaning it up themselves.
In another cellphone video, Swinney appears to tell the attendant, "It would be just easier if you just cleaned that or just changed me and my daughter's seat."
She then confronted the attendant again, and that's when she was asked to leave.
Police were called, and officers say they tried to negotiate with Swinney, but she did not cooperate. So they ordered everyone off the plane and arrested her.
"I wanted everybody to see what they were doing to me. And it wasn't necessary. I felt humiliated. I felt more so bad that my child had to see me be handcuffed and taken away from her," Swinney said.
Witnesses told 13 Action News that they couldn't believe what they saw.
"She did nothing disruptive or belligerent or threatening, and I don't understand why she was arrested," Mary Payson said.
However, Frontier Airlines responded with a statement, in part:
"The flight attendants apologized and immediately invited the mother and her teenage daughter to move to either end of the plane so that the seat area could be cleaned. The mother and daughter were also told that once boarding was complete, they would be provided other seats if available. The daughter was also offered cleaning products and invited to use the lavatory to wash up. The mother was unsatisfied with the response and became disruptive."
But Swinney said at no time did the flight attendant offered to give them another seat.
After the incident, the mother was eventually released after spending hours in jail and reunited with her daughter.
Swinney also said she would fight the misdemeanor trespassing charge.
