TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — An Arizona man has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines after being wrongfully identified and arrested as a shoplifting suspect, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Tarrant County court.
Michael Lowe is accusing American Airlines of negligence, mental, physical and financial damages after being jailed for 17 days for a crime he didn’t commit in 2020, the lawsuit said.
On May 12, 2020, Lowe boarded an American Airlines flight departing form Flagstaff, Arizona to Reno, Nevada, with a layover and change of plane at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Once on board his flight, Lowe took a selfie and sent it to his girlfriend, pictured below:
On May 13, 2020, DFW Airport police began investigating a burglary committed ahead of Lowe’s flight at a duty-free store in Terminal D of the airport, according to court records.
DFW police had a surveillance photo of the alleged suspect -- which showed a man with a low buzz cut, blue-navy shirt and light-colored jeans. DFW police then used surveillance video to track the alleged suspect’s location to the terminal that boarded the same flight as Lowe.
To identify the suspect, a DFW detective obtained a search warrant, which ordered American Airlines to produce any and all recorded travel data for all of the people on Lowe’s flight.
But Lowe’s attorneys said the airline failed to produce “any and all recorded travel data for all individuals,” and instead, provided the DFW detective with only Lowe’s data.
As a result, on June 30, 2020, two arrest warrants were issued for Lowe for felony burglary of a building and misdemeanor criminal mischief, according to court records.
On July 4, 2021, Lowe was on vacation in Tucumcari, New Mexico attending a Fourth of July celebrations, when he encountered police who were searching for someone who had caused a disturbance. When officers ran Lowe’s name and came across the warrants out of Tarrant County, Lowe was arrested.
Lowe was transported to the Quay County, New Mexico Detention Center, where he told authorities he was unaware of the charges and they had the wrong person in jail.
In the lawsuit, Lowe’s attorneys said, “The terror Mr. Lowe experienced while imprisoned in Quay County for the next 17 days was existential. Placed in a quarantine pod, the facilities contempt for the health, safety and well-being of its inmates was immediately obvious, as not a single staff member nor inmate wore a face covering.”
The lawsuit stated that Lowe also had to sleep on a concrete floor, witness violent confrontations and the unfair treatment of inmates.
When Lowe was released on his 17th day in prison, he was given no further information on the charges he faced and had no way of getting home, according to court documents.
After returning to his home in Arizona, Lowe launched his own investigation into the case to work on clearing his name. He called the Tarrant County jail, clerk’s office and the DA’s office before reaching the DFW police detective in charge of the case.
The detective told Lowe that another warrant had been issued for his arrest because Lowe was supposed to appear in Tarrant County court the same day he called. But Lowe continued to insist they had the wrong suspect, and the detective informed him that the information on Lowe was provided by American Airlines.
After weeks of trying to find representation for his case, the DFW detective had obtained Lowe’s mugshot from Quay County and compared it to the surveillance photos of the suspect wanted in the airport store burglary.
The detective and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office determined that Lowe was innocent, and all charges were dropped.
But the damage had been already done, he alleged.
The lawsuit went on to explain Lowe’s changed outlook on police, his issues with aches, anxiety, fear and nightmares following his days in jail. Lowe was once an outdoorsman and was preparing to take clients on tour in Alaska with his business as a National Park Service leader before his arrest. But the trip was cancelled, and Lowe lost a substantial amount of income as his warrants remained active for some time.
Now, American Airlines is accused in the lawsuit of breaching its duty by failing to comply with DFW police's warrant, failing to protect the safety of its passengers and causing Lowe's mental, physical and financial problems.
American Airlines sent WFAA the following response concerning the lawsuit Wednesday, June 8:
“As required by law, American cooperates with and responds to court orders for information related to possible criminal activity, and that’s what we did in this instance when we were presented with a search warrant.”