Ohio Woman Describes Becoming a ‘Suspicious’ Person
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
NYT
On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Shoshana Hebshi, 35, a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother of 6-year-old twins from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was on a plane flying from Denver to Detroit when something she — or another passenger in her row of seats — had done caused the government to scramble F-16 fighter planes and escort Frontier Airlines Flight 623 until it landed safely. The plane was taken to a remote part of the airport, and armed federal authorities handcuffed Ms. Hebshi and her seatmates and took them off the plane. She was placed in a jail cell, strip-searched and interrogated by the F.B.I. before eventually being released. The two men in her row were also allowed to go. Ms. Hebshi says she believes she was detained because she is “dark-skinned” — she is half Arab, half Jewish. She described her seatmates as Indian. The F.B.I. says it was responding to reports that Ms. Hebshi and the men were behaving suspiciously. But Ms. Hebshi said she was never told what about her behavior, or that of her seatmates, had been alarming to others on the plane. Ms. Hebshi discusses:
QUESTION: Do you remember having done anything on the plane that might have appeared to be “suspicious” to someone?
ANSWER: During the flight I didn’t get out of my seat at all. I read, and I slept on and off and I played a game on my phone — in airplane mode. And umm, that’s it, really. Looked out the window a couple of times to see where we were.
Q. And your seatmates, did you notice anything “suspicious” about them?
(More here.)
NYT
On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Shoshana Hebshi, 35, a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother of 6-year-old twins from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was on a plane flying from Denver to Detroit when something she — or another passenger in her row of seats — had done caused the government to scramble F-16 fighter planes and escort Frontier Airlines Flight 623 until it landed safely. The plane was taken to a remote part of the airport, and armed federal authorities handcuffed Ms. Hebshi and her seatmates and took them off the plane. She was placed in a jail cell, strip-searched and interrogated by the F.B.I. before eventually being released. The two men in her row were also allowed to go. Ms. Hebshi says she believes she was detained because she is “dark-skinned” — she is half Arab, half Jewish. She described her seatmates as Indian. The F.B.I. says it was responding to reports that Ms. Hebshi and the men were behaving suspiciously. But Ms. Hebshi said she was never told what about her behavior, or that of her seatmates, had been alarming to others on the plane. Ms. Hebshi discusses:
QUESTION: Do you remember having done anything on the plane that might have appeared to be “suspicious” to someone?
ANSWER: During the flight I didn’t get out of my seat at all. I read, and I slept on and off and I played a game on my phone — in airplane mode. And umm, that’s it, really. Looked out the window a couple of times to see where we were.
Q. And your seatmates, did you notice anything “suspicious” about them?
(More here.)
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