- A man said he spent 17 days in jail after American Airlines wrongly identified him as an airport shoplifter.
- Michael Lowe is suing the airline, saying it gave his information to police after the theft he didn't commit.
- The lawsuit said jail conditions were traumatizing and that he was left with anxiety and depression.
A man is suing American Airlines, alleging that the airline wrongfully identified him as a shoplifter, which got him jailed for 17 days.
A lawsuit filed on Monday said that Michael Lowe took an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in May 2020, the same day a different man stole from a store at the airport, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Lowe was not aware of that theft, the lawsuit said, according to the newspaper.
The lawsuit said Lowe was then arrested more than a year later while he was on vacation in New Mexico based on police warrants obtained after the airline identified him as the shoplifter, according to the Star-Telegram.
He then spent 17 days in a New Mexico jail, and was not aware of what he had been charged with until after he was released, the lawsuit said, according to the report.
Both the shoplifter and Lowe were on the same flight to Reno, Nevada, in May 2020, The Daily Beast reported.
Police told American Airlines to send footage of the plane boarding and a list of the plane's passengers, but the airline instead only sent over information about Lowe, the lawsuit said, according to the Star-Telegram. The lawsuit said the two men had different appearances, the report said.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Lowe's lawsuit.
The lawsuit said Lowe was held in a traumatizing conditions in Quay County Jail, the Star-Telegram reported.
The lawsuit said his protests that police had arrested the wrong person were ignored, and that he was strip searched and in a "constant state of fear of confrontation, physical abuse or sexual victimization," the Star-Telegram reported.
He also said that no one wore face masks despite the COVID-19 outbreak, and that he saw a young inmate attacked and blood remained on the floor and a wall for days, the lawsuit said, per the report.
He also had to sleep on a concrete floor that smelled like urine and feces, the lawsuit said, The Daily Beast reported.
The lawsuit said Lowe was not told why he was released after 17 days, that he had to walk miles to get a bus from a McDonald's, and that it took him two full days to get home to Flagstaff, Arizona.
"Upon stepping through the threshold of his home, Mr. Lowe allowed himself to sob until he could no longer stand," the lawsuit said, according to the Star-Telegram.
Lowe said the incident gave him anxiety, depression, and "an ongoing state of hyper-vigilance that has robbed him of any ability to rest or relax," The Daily Beast reported.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office later dropped all charges against Lowe after his lawyers asked DFW Airport police compared photos of Lowe with surveillance footage of the person who burglarized the airport store, the Star-Telegram reported.
Insider has contacted the criminal district attorney's office for comment.