‘They weren’t doing anything.’ Sacramento teens kicked off Allegiant Air flight

The community and the families of a youth basketball team are outraged after four Black players were kicked off an Allegiant Air flight this week in Arizona, with no way to get home to Sacramento.

The players — ages 16 and 17 — were seated aboard Allegiant Flight 208 from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport to Stockton on Monday night when the flight crew had them escorted off the plane by police for their alleged “refusal to comply with federal regulations.”

Four of the players were taken off the plane by authorities, though two of their teammates also refused to stay on the flight, the players said.

Allegiant Air said Wednesday that the passengers were kicked off the flight for improperly wearing their face coverings.

“Following repeated refusals to comply on board the aircraft the party was deplaned from the flight. The passengers in this party failed to sustain compliance with repeated crew member requests to wear face coverings properly (over their nose and mouth),” said Hilarie Grey, a spokeswoman for Allegiant. “Flight crew members were met with belligerent, dismissive comments.

“Allegiant does not discriminate based on race, gender, ethnicity, national origin or sexual orientation,” Grey added.

“A decision to deplane passengers is never made lightly,” she said. “But is determined in accordance with regulations, and in the interest of ensuring the safety of all passengers and crew throughout the duration of the flight.”

The players refute the statements, and say they complied with the flight crews’ requests, including leaving the plane.

Berry Accius, founder of Voice of the Youth, said the four teens, were targeted. The players are all Sacramento residents and participants in his youth mentorship program.

He said the teens were in Arizona for a tournament, and called the boys’ experience aboard Allegiant “racial profiling.” He said the experience on that plane proved every suspicion they had that others would unfairly judge them because of how they look and talk, “that my race does matter.”

“This is the underlying trauma that these kids now have to deal with,” Accius told The Sacramento Bee.

The incident, according to some of the teens who spoke to The Sacramento Bee, started during boarding and before the plane’s scheduled departure at 7:01 p.m. Mountain Time.

David Schuhmeier, one of the players removed from the flight, said problems began as soon as the passengers found their seats. Moments after sitting down, he says his group was approached by a flight attendant who asked one of the players to remove his feet from the aisle.

Schuhmeier said the passenger quickly moved his feet. That was quickly followed by a different member of the flight crew commanding two of the players to “put their mask above their nose.”

The 16-year-old said that his teammates did have their mask slightly below their nose.

“I didn’t think there was a problem,” he said. “They said ‘yes ma’am’ and put it above their nose.”

Brian Buchanan Jr., 17, who was also taken off the flight, said he felt he and his teammates — Schuhmeier, Corey Brown and Chris Holley — were being discriminated against.

“She profiled us as a football team. Maybe because we look like somebody else or dress like somebody else, or maybe just had the same hair,” said Buchanan. “I think that was wrong to just profile us as somebody who we aren’t.”

Within 15 minutes of making it to their seats, the group was approached a third time and asked to exit the plane in a manner that Schuhmeier described as rude.

The players, he said, objected — asking the flight crew the reason for the abrupt dismissal. In the middle of the confusion, some of the teens started calling their parents on their cellphones.

“We were scared. We didn’t know what was going on so we called our parents too,” Schuhmeier said. “They were telling us that they can’t say anything to our parents.”

According to Allegiant, its flight crew was met with “belligerent” and “dismissive” comments.

Schuhmeier and Buchanan said that the players were not trying to cause a disturbance and that they were complying with the orders to leave the plane. That’s when other passengers aboard the flight joined in protest, urging the teens to stay aboard.

One of those passengers, Amy Flanangan, told CBS Sacramento she was sitting next to the players and that she didn’t think the teens had done anything wrong.

“I did not hear anything disruptive, disrespectful,” Flanagan told CBS. “They weren’t doing anything that made me think that warranted them getting kicked off. I think it was just really disturbing honestly.”

Soon, Mesa police officers arrived and escorted the passengers off without incident. The agency said it was called by an Allegiant supervisor about several passengers who were having mask issues.

“There didn’t seem to be any issue, they complied and called their coach,” said Irene Mahoney, a spokeswoman for the Mesa Police Department.

Accius said he was shocked when he learned these four youths were kicked off the plane, because they are good students and respectful athletes who don’t exhibit disruptive behavior.

“Because these aren’t the kind of kids that would get kicked off a plane or a bus,” Accius said.

Accius said after leaving the plane, the youths were stranded in Mesa without a way to book another flight home, and that Allegiant did not refund the families for the plane tickets.

Summerlin, Nevada-based Allegiant says its policy is to not refund passengers who are removed from planes.

“The teens’ basketball coach was still in the area, and he picked them up at the airport,” Accius said.

After a night’s stay in a hotel — paid for in part by strangers aboard the flight that continued on to Stockton — the youths’ parents “scraped together” more money to purchase tickets on a Southwest Airlines flight Tuesday that returned the six to Sacramento.

The families said that they intend to file a lawsuit against Allegiant regarding the incident.

This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 2:22 PM.