Woman Claims She Was Arrested at Airport for Being Too "Good-Looking"
She allegedly tried to dine and dash.
A woman arrested at Las Vegas airport accused police officers of unfairly targeting her thanks to her exceptional good looks. Hend Bustami, 28, reportedly left a restaurant without paying her bill, then passed out by the security gate at the airport. When she was finally found and taken into custody, Bustami was allegedly belligerent and argumentative with law enforcement. Here is why she allegedly thought the police were punishing her for her looks.
The incident in question was sparked off when police were called to a Chili's restaurant in Harry Reid International Airport, regarding a woman who had allegedly dined and dashed. The officers looked for the woman—who they later discovered was Bustami—in the airport, but had trouble finding her. Eventually, airport employees pointed the police in the right direction after recognizing Bustami from her description.
"Soon after, officers working D gates were notified by TSA that [a] female matching that description was observed sleeping near the security checkpoint, hindering their operations," the official report said. Bustami was later discovered in the baggage claim area, where according to police she seemed intoxicated and was "belligerent with officers, saying she was being harassed because cops [had] never seen anyone as pretty as her."
According to officers, Bustami was aggressive and out of control while being arrested, saying "that she was going to spit on all [the officers] and that officers were perverts and were trying to [attack] her because they [had] never seen anyone as good looking," the report said. Police later found Bustami had an outstanding warrant from Las Vegas Municipal Court, and she was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on misconduct charges.
Bustami is currently being held on $1,000 bail, with a court date set for October 27. According to the FAA, there is an uptick in unruly passengers getting into trouble on flights and in airports. As of August 30, 2022, there have been 1,876 reports of unruly passengers, 650 investigations initiated, 440 enforcement action cases initiated, and 2.4 incidents per 10k flights.
Unruly behavior in an airport or on a plane could be considered a violation of federal law. The FAA has asked airports to help them in curtailing bad behavior, especially when alcohol is involved: "As the number of passengers traveling has increased, so has the number of unruly and unsafe behavior incidents on planes and in airports. The FAA adopted a Zero-Tolerance policy toward this behavior on airplanes earlier this year, and we are taking the strongest possible action within our legal authority. But we need your help. While FAA has levied civil fines against unruly passengers, it has no authority to prosecute criminal cases. Every week, we see situations in which law enforcement was asked to meet an aircraft at the gate following an unruly passenger incident. In some cases, flight attendants have reported being physically assaulted. Nevertheless, many of these passengers were interviewed by local police and released without criminal charges of any kind. When this occurs, we miss a key opportunity to hold unruly passengers accountable for their unacceptable and dangerous behavior. Our investigations show that alcohol often contributes to this unsafe behavior. The FAA requests that airports work with their concessionaires to help avoid this."
