Law & Crime
An Arizona man who says he has suffered “incomprehensible trauma” after being held in a New Mexico jail due to what he describes as a case of mistaken identity has sued American Airlines.
Michael Lowe says negligence on the part of American Airlines landed him in jail for more than two weeks in 2021, and although the criminal charges against him have been dropped, the time he spent in that jail has left him traumatized and a shell of his former self.
“It is the incomprehensible trauma of the wrongful accusation against Mr. Lowe, his resulting seventeen (17) day incarceration in the Quay County Detention Center (Quay County) in Tucumcari, New Mexico and the continuing crises that are its consequence, which are the subject of this suit,” he says in a lawsuit against American Airlines, filed Monday.
Lawsuit: Mixup Led to ‘Existential’ Terror Inside a New Mexico County Jail
Lowe’s ordeal began with a burglary at a duty-free store Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) on May 12, 2020—a burglary that he did not commit.
Lowe was at the airport that day on a layover for his flight from Flagstaff, Arizona, to Reno, Nevada, and DFW police traced the burglary suspect to that same American Airlines flight. According to the lawsuit, police looking for the burglary suspect obtained a search warrant ordering American Airlines to produce whatever travel data it had for passengers on the flight.
In response, the lawsuit alleges, the airline provided information about one person only: Lowe.
Felony and misdemeanor arrest warrants were issued for Lowe in Tarrant County, Texas, at that time, but it appears that nothing happened until more than a year later.
On July 4, 2021, Lowe was in Tucumcari, New Mexico, visiting friends and attending a Fourth of July event. Some sort of “disturbance” occurred at that event, the complaint says, and when police came to investigate, Lowe provided his identification.
“When the officers ran Mr. Lowe’s name and found the outstanding warrants from Tarrant County, they had no choice but to arrest him,” the complaint says.
Lowe, without knowing why he was arrested, was taken to the detention center in Quay County, New Mexico, where he was strip-searched for potential contraband—the first step in what Lowe described as a nightmarish few weeks.
“The terror Mr. Lowe experienced while imprisoned in Quay County for the next 17 days was existential,” the complaint says. “Placed in a [COVID-19] quarantine pod, the facilities contempt for the health, safety and well-being of its inmates was immediately obvious, as not a single staff member nor inmate wore a face covering.”
Lowe said that he lived “in a constant of fear of confrontation or abuse” as “violent outbursts” occurred around him.
“Mr. Lowe was forced to watch when a young inmate was punched in the face three times in rapid succession by an older inmate for no apparent reason,” the complaint says. “A week later, a wall remained stained with the young inmate’s blood.”
Lowe also says that due to overcrowding at the jail, he had no choice but to sleep on the concrete floor, and that “the smell of urine and feces kept the air so pungent that Mr. Lowe was often forced to breath through his mouth and use [h]is jail clothing to cover his nose.”
After 17 days, Lowe was released from the jail, without any apparent explanation or additional information, according to the suit. Wearing the clothes he was wearing when he was arrested—which were now covered in mildew, having been kept wet inside a plastic bag for more than two weeks—he bought a bus ticket to take him home to Arizona, walking miles to a McDonald’s restaurant where the bus was to pick him up. But even that ride was an ordeal, he says—the bus broke down, turning what should have been a 12-hour trip into a journey that lasted two full days.
