The Wall Street Journal: 2 Chicago airport police officers who dragged United passenger off plane fired

Chicago’s aviation department has fired two airport police officers involved in the removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight in April, city officials said Tuesday.

An aviation security officer who “improperly escalated the incident” involving Kentucky physician David Dao at O’Hare International Airport was fired, as was a sergeant involved in the filing misleading reports about the case, according to the city inspector general’s office.

The Chicago Department of Aviation also suspended two other aviation officers involved in the incident. The other two employees were terminated in August, a department spokeswoman said.

The case sparked a firestorm of criticism directed at United, Chicago airport authorities and the state of modern air travel. United has apologized to Dao for his treatment during the incident. An inspector general’s report found the aviation officer who pulled Dao from the plane violated the aviation department’s use-of-force policy when he “escalated a nonthreatening situation into a physically violent one by forcefully removing a passenger from the aircraft.”

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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