New court documents reveal what triggered a woman to have a public freak-out on a Delta flight over the Christmas holiday that ended up with her being taken into FBI custody.
Patricia Cornwall was taken into custody after getting into a physical altercation with an 80-year-old man, referred to in court documents as R.S.M., late last week. The fight started when she was returning from the bathroom and was held up in the aisle by a beverage cart that was blocking her way back to her seat. Cornwall allegedly asked the flight attendant for help finding her seat and she was told to find an open seat until beverage service was complete.
The criminal complaint states that Cornwall “responded to the flight attendant ‘What am I Rosa Parks?’ R.S.M. advised the beverage cart and flight attendant were at his row and R.S.M. believed Cornwall’s comment was inappropriate and he responded to Cornwall that she ‘isn’t black….this isn’t Alabama and this isn’t a bus.’”
The criminal complaint further stated:
R.S.M. advised CORNWALL then turned her attention towards R.S.M. R.S.M. stated he told CORNWALL to “sit down Karen” to which CORNWALL responded, “sit down p**sy”. Additional derogatory comments were made by both parties involved. CORNWALL then struck R.S.M. with a closed fist, striking R.S.M. about the head, causing visible injury. CORNWALL then spit in R.S.M.’s face and head area.
R.S.M. advised that CORNWALL was taken by flight security and restrained for the remainder of the flight.
The criminal complaint stated that cell phone footage of the incident, which went viral online with millions of views, corroborated the story provided to authorities by the 80-year-old man.
The criminal complaint accuses her of violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 113(a)(4), Assault that occurred within the Special Aircraft Jurisdiction of the United States (Title 49, United States Code, Section 46506(1)).
During the altercation, Cornwall stood over the man and demanded that he put his mask on, despite the fact that she had her mask pulled down.
“Stand your a*s up!” the woman yelled. “Stand your a*s up!”
“Sit down, Karen!” the man fired back. “You’re a g*****n, Karen. Sit down!”
After several more moments of intense back-and-forth between the man and the woman, the flight crew got involved and tried to break up the situation before she struck the man in the face with her hand.
“Now you’re going to jail,” the man yelled. “That’s assault. You’re going to jail. As soon as we get to Atlanta, you’re going to jail.”
“Karen!” the man yelled.
The woman then appeared to spit in the man’s face.
“Now you spit on me, now you’re double going to jail,” the man fired back.
“You f***ing piece of s**t,” the woman yelled.
“Put your f***ing mask on!” the woman yelled as she was not wearing a mask. “Put your f***ing mask on!”
Delta Air Lines responded to the incident by telling the Daily Mail in a statement that it has a zero tolerance policy for these types of incidents.
“Flight 2790 from Tampa to Atlanta was met by law enforcement after an unruly customer disturbance during flight,” Delta said. “Situations like these are rare for the vast majority of our customers and Delta has zero tolerance for unruly behavior at our airports and aboard our aircraft.”
Delta flight from Tampa to Atlanta got crazy‼️ pic.twitter.com/I9BZUKv3LB
— ATL Uncensored | Atlanta News (@ATLUncensored) December 25, 2021