“I felt like my dignity was stripped from me right in front of my children and my family,” Davis said during a July 17 appearance on ‘Good Morning America.’
Terrell Davis and his wife Tamiko Nash are opening up about the former Denver Broncos running back being handcuffed in front of their kids on a recent United flight.
Davis first recalled the details of the July 13 incident on Instagram, claiming he was wrongfully removed from the airplane after a flight attendant accused the NFL star of hitting him. Davis says he lightly tapped the crew member’s back to ask for a cup of ice for his son.
While Davis and his wife were discussing the incident during a July 17 appearance on Good Morning America, Nash got visibly emotional as she recalled the impact it had on their children.
She recounts that law enforcement, including the FBI, approached her husband while he was “still seated” and immediately put handcuffs on him.
“Don’t fight it,” Terrell remembers the agent telling him.
Nash continues, “I thought it was a joke, because what else could it be? I saw the agents come on so of course it caught my attention like everyone else. And they just walked straight up to Terell. So I jumped out of my seat and I said, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going on?’ I hopped over to the woman next to me and I said to Terrell, ‘Are you joking?’”
She begins to choke back tears when she recalls looking over at her two sons, who are 13 and 11 years old, as they watched their dad get handcuffed in the aisle seat beside them. Their 9-year-old daughter was sitting next to Nash during the incident.
“I’m looking at my sons who are sitting right next to him watching their dad being handcuffed. And what could we do? And I’m asking them what is going on? Why are you doing this?” she says. “No one helped me. We were just left to fend for ourselves on the flight while everyone’s staring at us.”
Davis shared that he’s speaking out on the mistreatment he experienced in order to “effect change” and push United to take responsibility for its actions.
“Knowing what happened to me, and how I felt – I felt demoralized, I felt embarrassed, humiliated. I felt like my dignity was stripped from me right in front of my children and my family. And I want United to be held accountable,” he says.
Davis’ attorneys, Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, confirm that United still hasn’t contacted Davis with a personal apology since his Good Morning America appearance.
In Davis’ statement on July 15, the retired football star goes into detail about the flight attendant’s shocking reaction after he asked for a cup of ice for his son. Davis says the United employee did not hear his initial request, which prompted him to “lightly tap” the flight attendant on the back to get his attention.
The crew member then allegedly shouted “don’t hit me” in response and rushed to the front of the airplane. Davis says he didn’t think much of the reaction other than believing the employee was “rude” until the flight landed at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif.
After “six FBI and law enforcement agents boarded the plane” and handcuffed him, he was then questioned and eventually released the same day.
“It was rightfully determined by the agents that this flight attendant was inaccurate in his accusations and the agents profusely apologized even offering to support me and my family in any way possible,” Davis added in his statement.
In a statement shared on Tuesday, July 16, a spokesperson for United said that the airline had “reached out to Mr. Davis’s team to apologize” and confirmed that the flight attendant who accused Davis of hitting him has been removed from service.
