He once tried to hijack a plane. As he runs for mayor, he's 'shocked' more don't care
At just 22, he stormed onto a plane at JFK airport, brandishing a handgun and demanding the pilots fly him to Antarctica so he could fight off bad guys.
Now, 17 years later, Aaron Commey is running to be mayor of New York City.
And technically, he has a shot — Commey’s name will appear on the ballot in every New York City borough when voters head to the polls on Nov. 7, as reported by City & State New York.
According to a 2000 story from CBS News, Commey forced his way onto National Airlines Flight 19 on July 28, 2000, taking two pilots hostage in the plane’s cockpit for hours. At one point, witnesses and police said Commey held his gun to a pilot’s head.
Commey, who doctors believed was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a delusional disorder at the time, demanded that all passengers be taken off the plane, CBS reported. Then, Port Authority Police Chief Fred Marrone told CBS, he demanded to be flown to “a South American country” like Argentina and also the icy continent of Antarctica.
Commey told the City & State earlier this week that, at the time, he wanted to parachute into Antarctica and fight a secret organization dubbed the “Cabal” that aimed to “take over the world through mass destruction.”
The plane never took off, however, and three years later Comey was found not guilty of all charges “by reason of insanity,” according to court documents.
The mayoral candidate, who is running as a Libertarian, told the Associated Press he is “shocked” more people haven’t brought up his past as he seeks to run the largest city in the United States.
But Comey said he isn’t offended when residents ask him about the attempted hijacking.
“It’s definitely a valid question … ‘Well, how can we trust you, when you’re this guy who tried to hijack a plane?’” he said to the City & State. “I am not the same person that I was. I was definitely severely mentally ill.”
“And in addition to recovering from my mental illness without medication, I am a completely different person in terms of how I approach situations and I’m committed to nonviolence.”
Fox News reported that Commey was kept in a medical institution in prison until 2015. He was released from the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri, after the warden there “certified Mr. Commey had recovered from his mental disease or defect to such an extent that his conditional release ... would no longer create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person,” according to a Dec. 2014 court document.
He told the City & Paper that the experience changed his perception of government and inspired him to run as a Libertarian.
“Aaron Commey is intelligent, Resilient and a fighter for justice,” his campaign site reads. “Commey's passion for reform was born out of his own experience overcoming his own trials and tribulations with the Justice System and Mental Health Issues.”
Bill de Blasio, the Democratic mayor of New York City, is the current front-runner for the upcoming election. Other candidates include Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican assemblywoman, and Richard 'Bo' Dietl, an independent and former New York police detective, according to Fox.
This story was originally published October 27, 2017 at 5:03 AM with the headline "He once tried to hijack a plane. As he runs for mayor, he's 'shocked' more don't care."