Sorry foxtrot, this has nothing to do with with liking or agreeing with Dr. Dao. In fact, I would say it's quite the opposite: a lot of people are agreeing with him because they dislike the airline rather than because of the facts of the case or whether the actions were right or wrong.

I agree his past criminal (or not) history is irrelevant. What I'm saying is that his behaviorial history actually IS relevant because it bears on whether you believe his injuries were caused by the officers (none of whom seemed to be swinging violently) or self-inflicted by hysterical resistance. A past history of PTSD does actually make the self-infliction scenario more likely -- and I completely disagree that it's unlikely he knocked himself out. If he's thrashing around and hits his head violently on the armrest, it's a good bet that he stunned himself as well -- especially given the broken nose and 2 teeth knocked out. Again, go back to the viral video -- do you see ANY violent arm swings by the security officers?

I get that a lot of you are inherently suspicious of self-important tyrants or mall cops. I even agree with that under some circumstances but what I saw and heard from the video seemed to fit better with Dao spazzing out and hurting himself than with a mall cop busting on him because he could. The question of whether United should have deboarded him or other passengers is a separate question from whether they did something wrong in the process of deboarding. ON the first point, Scalia used to maintain a law could be wrong morally or ethically and still be constitutional. Similarly, I maintain the airline shouldn't have gone through deboarding the way they did but they had every right to do so. On the second point, it seems more likely to me that his injuries were self-inflicted by his behavior.