Muslim woman says man harassed her at Fort Lauderdale airport. Deputy kicked him out, cops say
Broward deputies said it took them minutes to arrive at a Spirit Airlines gate at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a Muslim woman wearing a hijab said she was harassed by a man, although the woman said it took officials too long to help her.
A video of the incident shortly before Thanksgiving went viral on TikTok after a fellow traveler recorded the encounter.
According to the sheriff’s office, the disturbance was reported at Terminal 3 around 6:15 p.m Nov. 20, and a deputy arrived four minutes after she was notified.
“When the deputy arrived on scene, she saw the subject in a verbal altercation with another male,” Gerdy St. Louis, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, said in an email to the Herald Tuesday. “Contact was made with witnesses who stated the subject had been arguing with other passengers.”
While the deputy was investigating, the sheriff’s office says the Spirit Airlines flight departed. While the woman was able to board, the man was not permitted to, BSO said.
“The airline did not allow the male to get on the plane and deputies escorted him off the property,” St. Louis said.
Salma Khan said she was 15 minutes from boarding her flight to Phoenix when the incident occurred. Khan, 27, originally from South Florida, said she sat on one of the only partly empty rows of seats as the airport was crowded with Thanksgiving travelers.
She then noticed a man staring at her.
“I’m a visible Muslim woman. I wanted to make him comfortable, so I introduced myself,” Khan said.
The man then told Khan that he was “happy this was happening” and alluded to wanting to remove her hijab. She asked him to leave her alone and jumped out of her seat when two strangers rushed in to help.
They sandwiched Khan to shield her from the man. But the man, Khan said, called her a terrorist and rambled on about how she — and other Muslims — hate America.
After about 10 minutes, Khan says, a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived at the gate and escorted the man away. Khan said the sheriff’s office never took her name or a statement, but the man was switched to a later flight.
Khan thanked the good Samaritans who stepped in, and noted that the man had followed her around the airport as she shopped for a last-minute gift before the incident.
TikTok user Ramona Flowers, who uploaded the three-minute video to the social media site, told the Miami Herald she began recording after noticing that the man was reaching for Khan’s face. She also overheard the man making Islamophobic comments.
Flowers’ video started when the man said he needed to take photos of Khan and the three strangers helping her for a report to the FBI. He said Khan shouldn’t be “here” and that everyone in the airport was against her.
In the video, Khan, who is visibly uncomfortable, and the people who helped her smiled as the man photographed them.
“I [didn’t] want to give power to his hatred,” Khan told the Herald.
At some point in the video, Flowers shouted at the man to sit down. But he continued to take photos and approach the group. He then sat next to them.
Three nearby Spirit Airlines agents were preoccupied boarding flights, but one did try to call security, Flowers said. Some time later, the deputy showed up.
“It does hurt a bit, during such a helpless time, that people in power didn’t step in to help,” Khan said.
Spirit hadn’t responded as of Nov. 29 to the Herald’s multiple inquiries.
A TikTok influencer named Danesh, who has built a base of almost two million followers for identifying people caught on video while in public, helped the video go viral on the platform. His video had been viewed about 1.5 million times.
This story was originally published November 23, 2023 at 5:14 PM.
