African American man arrested on airplane by pilot for wearing baggy pants

Thursday, August 18, 2011 by: Brigid Shaw
Tags: African Americans, baggy pants, health news

(NaturalNews) An African-American passenger of US Airways was arrested for wearing a sagging pair of pajama pants at a San Francisco airport.

Deshon Marman, 20, University of New Mexico football player, had just attended his best friend's funeral and was boarding a plane to return to school when an airline employee asked him to pull up his pants. Marman says he refused, explaining his hands were full.

The pilot then asked Marman to leave the plane, and when Marman refused, the pilot evacuated the plane and made a citizen's arrest. The football player was charged with battery of a police officer, resisting arrest and trespassing.

However, prosecutors have since dropped the charges against Marman.

"My belief is if we took this into a courtroom with 12 members of our community on our jury, this would be considered unimportant." District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, as reported by the Huffington Post. "And I share that view."

Marman's mother told the San Francisco Chronicle that her son was targeted because he is a young black man.

"He's a good kid trying to make it and he's going through a lot," she said. "And then this happens."

In an interview with Bay Area KQED reporter Mina Kim, a US Airways spokesman said that the airline "does not have a specific dress code. But we do ask our customers to dress in an appropriate manner to ensure the safety and comfort of all of our passengers." (http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/06/17/int...)

But when a photo surfaced of a white man boarding a US Airways flight wearing women's panties and thigh-high stockings days before Marman's June 15 arrest, critics were outraged.

Nearly 200 people gathered on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, accusing US Airways of racism.

"You say you want the pants pulled up," the Rev. Amos Brown said from the podium. "We say, pull up justice in America." (http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/peninsula/20...)

Marman said in an interview with ABC that he told the pilot who arrested him, "I'm just like everybody else on this plane. I'm human," and the pilot said, "No, you're not. You're not like everybody else."
(http://www.eurthisnthat.com/2011/06/20/updat...)

Marman had been in San Francisco to attend the funeral of his close friend David Henderson, who had been shot in the Bayview neighborhood where Marman grew up.

Deshon Marman plans to pursue a lawsuit against US Airways.

Additional sources for this story include:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/des...

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-06-16/n...