John and Martha King in Cuffs--Second Time Police Make Same Mistake!

PHOTO: Used with permission of Jim Pitman. Jim after being detained in Wichita. N50545 in background.

9/7/10 Story has now gone mainstream in Jeff Stein's Washington Post blog SpyTalk.

8/31/10 See UPDATE at bottom. You may have heard that John and Martha King were detained over the weekend at gunpoint after they landed in Santa Barbara to visit a friend. According to an AOPA story, “upon landing at Santa Barbara, the airplane was directed to a remote part of the airport instead of the FBO where the Kings planned to park. There, four police cruisers were parked. After shutting down the engine, King was ordered out of the aircraft with his hands up and told to back slowly toward the officers, who had guns drawn. After he was handcuffed and placed in a cruiser, Martha was ordered to similarly exit the aircraft. She too was handcuffed and placed in a separate cruiser.” What the story doesn’t say is that this is...

the second time a pilot has been detained and handcuffed for flying N50545!

In January 2009, Jim Pitman, a friend of mine who was a Cessna employee at the time, posted an account on Facebook of his run in with police. While he was handcuffed, he was detained in a far less threatening manner than the Kings were. Here’s information from his posting: “So I got to spend some time handcuffed in the back of a police car on the ramp in Wichita today.

“Here's the story... I pick up my new Skyhawk (N50545) at the factory in Independence Kansas and head for Wichita for some company meetings. As soon as I land the cops are there to greet me, saying they need to ask me some questions. I first think some of my friends are playing a practical joke, but they assure me they are serious and proceed to handcuff me. By this time I knew it was not a joke, and of course, was completely cooperative.

“Apparently N50545 is a tail number that used to be assigned to another airplane that was reported stolen several years ago. The officers were very friendly and it only took about 20 minutes to clear everything up. I was smiling the entire time knowing what a great story this was going to be :-)”

The incident over the weekend with the Kings was far less cordial and is getting far more attention. AOPA President Craig Fuller was understandably outraged. “Simply put, this incident is as outrageous as it is inexplicable and raises serious questions about the coordination of information among federal and local authorities. A $2 app for an iPad and 30 seconds would have discovered sufficient information to raise serious doubt that John and Martha King, who filed an instrument flight plan in a Cessna 172, were instead flying an older stolen Cessna 150 whose N number had long ago been retired and reissued by the FAA.”

I followed up with Jim a few minutes ago by phone, broke the news to him about this second incident, and asked for his thoughts. He said that “it was shocking that this could have happened again years later. My flight was the plane’s very first flight away from the factory in Independence and I then flew it for several months around the West, including into Santa Barbara, without incident.” Asked about the difference in the way he was treated versus the Kings he said “The police in Wichita were totally cool with me and there were no guns drawn.”

So pilots beware. In the post 9/11 era, small planes continue to be regarded by the public and sometimes law enforcement as objects of terror. If confronted by law enforcement, remember to use the words “Yes sir” frequently until things get sorted out. Hopefully there won’t be a third incident in which pilots are detained for flying N50545. You can hear Martha describing the incident in a 15 minute podcast at avweb.com.

Update: Jim Campbell of Aero-News Network is reporting the Santa Barbara Police Chief called John and Martha King today and "apologized clearly and profusely for the incident." My guess is that this is the kind of call that Police Chiefs don't make often. 

Comments

[Frank Van Haste]

Max:

Thanks for this add-on to the story. I'm not happy to note that with the creditable exception of The Atlantic's Jim Fallows, I've seen ZERO main-stream media coverage of this debacle. Is there any way to wake those people up before somebody gets shot?

Frank Van Haste

[James]

The Santa Barbara police seem to have a penchant for over-reacting. It is absolutely deplorable that they might completely ignore any "cop instinct" they have and treat the Kings like drug dealing airplane thieves. This entire situation is very frustrating!

[Max Trescott]

Frank, if one of the Kings had been shot, it would have been on every media outlet in the country. But since it was just mistake, I guess it's not news. James a former cop has posted several comments about ignoring "cop instinct" on my Facebook page. You can find more than a dozen comments at: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=467817905627&comments=

[Larry]

The police who responded to this call are complete dopes. There are far too many trigger-happy cops on their own little power trip, and the number of these pathetic, self-entitled individuals is growing at an unprecedented rate. Law enforcement needs to wise up, buy a little common sense at the local convenience store, and show respect to the citizens they are sworn to protect. Treating a couple of diminutive, mild-mannered senior citizens this way is the kind of material you might find in a Saturday Night Live skit, but sadly it was a real-life occurrence and not a comedy routine. Disgusting! It's time our society reigns in its police to teach them in no uncertain terms that we live in America, not the Third Reich.

When I was a kid, our parents told us how the police were there to help and to never be afraid to ask for their assistance. Now the best advice we can give young people is to avoid law enforcement at all cost, as a totally innocent civilian could find him/herself mistreated or beaten, then thrown in jail for good measure.