United Airlines passenger Dr. David Dao was combative, officers claim

The officers who dragged an Elizabethtown, Kentucky, doctor off a United Airlines flight bound for Louisville this month are claiming he was combative and aggressive. 

A slew of documents released late Monday by the Chicago Department of Aviation revealed the names of the four involved officers, who are now on administrative leave, and sheds light on their versions of the April 9 incident on Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville.

Much of what is detailed in the officers' narratives is captured by passengers' videos that have gone viral, provoked outrage and captured international attention. 

They show an officer, now identified as James Long, forcefully pulling 69-year-old Dr. David Dao from his seat after he refused to leave the plane with his wife.

In a "hospitalization case report," a Chicago Police Department officer wrote that Dao was seen hitting his face on an armrest as the aviation officers "attempted to escort" him from the plane.

According to the report taken by Chicago police, Dao said he and his wife listened to the announcement made on the plane asking for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for $800.

An airline supervisor failed to get any volunteers to leave the loaded plane to make room for four airline employees who needed to be on the flight to Louisville, United has said. 

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Dao said he and his wife were at first interested but changed their minds after learning they weren’t guaranteed a flight later in the day.

“Victim stated he had to see patients tomorrow and could not accept a next day flight,” the report reads.

Dao said he was told that he and his wife were randomly selected to deboard.

Reports filed by security officers Mauricio Rodriguez Jr. and Steven Smith state that Dao refused to leave the plane. 

Rodriguez arrived first on the plane, he wrote, and was told by an airlines supervisor that Dao was "yelling about leaving the aircraft."

He said that he spent several minutes trying to persuade Dao “in a calm manner” but Dao responded, “I’m not leaving this flight that I paid money for. I don’t care if I get arrested.”

Smith then arrived, followed by Long.

“The subject responded repeatedly in an aggressive manner, ‘I’m not getting off,' " Rodriguez wrote. 

Video from the evening flight shows Dao would not leave, telling officers he'd rather go to jail and that they'd have to drag him from the plane. It also shows he did cry out as Long pulled him from his seat and down the aisle as visibly disturbed passengers looked on. 

Long, with the aviation department since 2015, wrote in a report that when he tried to grab Dao he “started swinging his arms up and down with a closed fist.”

As he pulled Dao away from the seat and toward the aisle, Long said he lost his grip on the doctor when the man suddenly "started flailing and fighting," causing Dao to fall and hit his mouth on an armrest. 

Rodriguez echoed Long's account, adding that Long used “minimal but necessary force to remove the subject.”

Long wrote that he dragged a limp Dao down the aisle of the plane by his arms “due to the fact that the subject would not stand up.”

Dao recalled to police that all he remembered "was ‘a tall, black guy, lift me up and throw me to the floor,’ ” reads the police report. 

At a news conference days later, Dao's attorneys said the doctor suffered a broken nose and concussion and lost two front teeth. 

Rodriguez, Smith and Long all noted their statements were given against their will and out of fear of losing their job if they didn't speak. 

Aviation Security Sgt. John Moore, who arrived after the incident, is also on paid administrative leave. 

Personnel files for the four officers show no major infractions, though Long served a five-day suspension in late March for failing to obey a direct order.

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In the fallout, United Airlines stock took a hit and the company was derided on social media and mocked on late night television. 

Shortly after the incident, CEO Oscar Munoz characterized Dao as "disruptive and belligerent" but following public backlash later issued statements and took to daytime television to apologize to the Kentucky doctor, saying in light of the "system failure" his airline will no longer use police to take booked, paid and seated passengers off planes.

The aviation and police department paperwork, obtained by the Courier-Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request, included the aviation department's use of force policy last updated in March 2013. 

It instructs officers to use “only the amount of force reasonably necessary to affect an arrest or control a person shall be used.”

Meanwhile, Dao's attorney, Thomas Demetrio, said in a Monday interview on the "Today" show that his client wasn't belligerent or disruptive and passenger cell phone video corroborates that account. 

He also confirmed he intends to file a lawsuit on Dao's behalf against the airline.

An email to Demetrio's spokeswoman seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon. 

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