PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Portland woman and her husband were kicked off of a flight from Baltimore to Seattle over the weekend, according to Alaska Airlines.
It happened after the woman demanded the man sitting next to her be moved to a different seat because he supported President Trump.
That passenger, Scott Koteskey, said he’d been in Washington D.C. to attended the presidential Inauguration.
Before the plane took off, he recorded part of the confrontation with the woman on his cell phone, which he said started the moment he sat down.
“She just came at me swinging, with insults, disparaging me for having voted for ‘that man,’” Koteskey told Inside Edition.
His cell phone video shows the woman—who said she was trying to get home to Portland—ranting at Koteskey.
Posted by Scott Koteskey on Saturday, January 21, 2017
“You pretend to have the moral high ground but you put that man's finger on the nuclear button,” the woman told Koteskey. “That man doesn't believe in climate change. Do you believe in gravity?”
A flight attendant walked over and asked the woman if there was going to be a problem.
“There will be,” she replied. “I would like for him to change seats with someone else...There is no way I'm getting off this plane."
Eventually, the woman and her husband were both escorted off the plane by police as several passengers applauded and chanted "USA!"
In a statement to KGW, an Alaska Airlines representative wrote:
“The female passenger was insulting passengers in the boarding area and then onboard the aircraft. Several passengers expressed concerns about her behavior. We stand by our employees’ decision to remove the disruptive passenger.”
Writing about the experience on his Facebook page, Koteskey described what happened after police removed the woman from the plane:
“As the lady was removed I saw that I was surrounded by blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites, all who had chimed in asking her to be removed and who had defended me. I was touched and moved knowing later that not all these people were Trump supporters. The black man who took the seat next to me was a registered Democrat and he and I had a very good discussion about the beauty of free speech and coming together when people insult and commit acts of violence just for having differing views.”
Koteskey concluded that the experience had been a demonstration of Americans coming together to stand up for one another.