Flight Attendant Locks FBI Agent’s Wife in Bathroom, Calling Her a “Terrorist”

The Skinny:

• Yazz Giraldo, the wife of a former FBI agent, claims a flight attendant locked her and her 3-year-old son in an airplane bathroom and accused her of causing a “terrorist” incident.
• Giraldo believes the incident was racially motivated because she and her husband were speaking Farsi to their toddlers.
• The family was flying from Fort Lauderdale to New York in September 2019 for a Long Island wedding when the incident occurred.
• Giraldo has filed a discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines in Brooklyn Federal Court.

In September 2019, Yazz Giraldo, the wife of a former FBI agent, was flying with her husband and two children from Fort Lauderdale to New York for a wedding when she claims she was locked in an airplane bathroom with her 3-year-old son and accused of causing a “terrorist” incident by a flight attendant.

Giraldo, who is of Middle Eastern and Latin descent, believes she was racially targeted because she and her husband were speaking Farsi to their toddlers.

The drama unfolded when both of Giraldo’s children urgently needed to use the restroom. Giraldo tried to take the baby to the first-class bathroom closest to their seats at the front of the plane, but one flight attendant barred her from doing so without explanation.

She changed the baby’s diaper at the rear of the plane, where her husband was sitting separately. A second flight attendant there told her there was no prohibition on using the closer bathroom, so she took her son to that lavatory.

The flight attendant who barred her from first class tried to stop her, even as the child “was holding himself, he was about to lose it,” Giraldo said.

When Giraldo was inside the bathroom, she heard the door locking, which caused her to panic. She started banging on the door and screaming to be let out.

A few minutes later, a supervisor loudly berated her in front of other passengers, claiming “the pilot decided to put the plane under terrorist attack warning because of you.”

When Giraldo tried to explain that she had been misled about the bathroom and locked inside, the attendant accused her of lying.

Giraldo has filed a discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines in Brooklyn Federal Court, claiming she was racially targeted and subjected to emotional distress.

Her husband, who served six years in the FBI and worked on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the incident was humiliating and has made them question whether they should be teaching their children Farsi.

Source: NY Post