Man accused of holding razor blade to a woman's neck on a JetBlue flight, officials say - CBS News

1 year ago 38

A Utah antheral was arrested and charged aft allegedly holding a razor leaf to a woman's cervix connected a flight.

Merrill Darrell Fackrell, 41, was connected a JetBlue formation from New York to Salt Lake City connected Nov. 21 erstwhile helium allegedly assaulted the rider adjacent to him, according to the Department of Justice.

He was sitting successful a model spot successful a enactment with a joined pistillate and antheral and engaged successful speech with the woman, according to a transgression ailment filed by the DOJ.

The pistillate began to ticker a movie utilizing headphones, and said she could perceive Fackrell proceed to speech to himself, but she was not paying attention. Fackrell past enactment his manus successful beforehand of the surface and told her to intermission the movie.

The pistillate alleges that she took disconnected her headphones and realized Fackrell had what appeared to beryllium a weapon positioned inches from her neck, according to the DOJ.

The entity was aboriginal identified arsenic a consecutive borderline razor with a 1 to 2 inch blade.

Fackrell allegedly stood up and yelled, "She's going to beryllium ok," and "no 1 needs to worry." He allegedly told the hubby to "get the f*** retired of there."

The woman's hubby got up to alert a formation attendant. The pistillate lunged for the aisle and Fackrell tried to drawback her enarthrosis and halt her.

Another rider seated crossed the aisle saw Fackrell holding an object, confronted him, and was capable to get him to enactment the entity helium was holding down connected the seat. He passed the entity — which turned retired to beryllium a razor — to the formation unit for harmless keeping, according to the complaint. He past sat adjacent to Fackrell for the duration of the flight.

The alleged incidental occurred adjacent the extremity of the flight, a spokesperson for JetBlue said successful a connection to CBS News.

"Crewmembers responded by moving to de-escalate the concern and notified instrumentality enforcement who met the formation successful Salt Lake City," the spokesperson said. "The information of our customers and crewmembers is JetBlue's archetypal priority, and we volition enactment instrumentality enforcement during their investigation."

A chap rider connected the level recorded a video of Fackrell being escorted retired by constabulary aft landing.

Witness: Man takes pistillate hostage connected @jetblue formation to @slcairport with razor to throat, demands level onshore saying "This ain't nary 9/11 sh**." Good Samaritan steps in, gets limb away, calms antheral down, stays adjacent to him until level lands. "Peace out" antheral says arsenic he's arrested. #ut pic.twitter.com/9Cb35jMlKp

— Lauren Steinbrecher (@LaurenSnews) November 24, 2022

The U.S. Attorney's Office filed the ailment connected Nov. 22 charging Fackrell with carrying a limb connected an craft and battle with a unsafe limb successful the peculiar craft jurisdiction of the United States, according to the Department of Justice.

The lawsuit is being investigated by Salt Lake City Police Department and an FBI Task Force officer.

A spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the medication is "very acrophobic astir the fig of unruly passengers who prosecute successful disruptive behaviour during flight."

TSA is moving with instrumentality enforcement connected the case.

"We instrumentality our work to unafraid the skies for the traveling nationalist precise earnestly and are introducing caller x-ray exertion astatine much airports to amended our capableness to amended observe items specified arsenic the 1 utilized successful this incident," the spokesperson said. "We commend the actions of the formation attendants and different passengers connected this flight."

In 2021, determination were 5,981 unruly rider reports, and the FAA projected $5 cardinal successful fines against unruly passengers past year, according to the administration.

Last year, 1,099 investigations were initiated, a ample increase from 2020, erstwhile determination were 183 investigations into unruly rider incidents.

This year, determination person been 2,178 reports of unruly passengers, arsenic of Nov. 1.