NARRATOR: At Houston, Southwest's
oldest flight attendant, Rich Wong, has run out of patience.
I didn't cuss at you.
I just told you you were full of [bleep]..
- OK. - I'll tell you what.
Why don't you and I come up top.
NARRATOR: Kelly picks up the pieces of Jeffrey
Swanson's identity crisis.
Why would you tell them that you're a police officer
and that you're there to watch the flight?
I didn't.
Are you a police officer?
No.
OK.
I had several customers tell me that you on board
the aircraft telling them that you are a police
officer for New York PD and that you
were there to watch the flight.
No.
I didn't impersonate a police officer.
I told him I was not a US agent or a Marshall.
OK.
The flight crew, along with the customers that were on board,
said that you did.
Did you give them any reason to believe that?
No, I didn't.
I'm wearing this shirt.
That'd be the only reason why.
I had four customers pull me off to the side
that were sitting next to you.
One said that you told him to move the newspaper out
of the way so that you could keep an eye on things that
were going on down the aisle.
I do have concerns with having you
continue on on another flight.
You know, I mean, I just don't feel safe on planes anymore.
Like--
Have you maybe thought about driving, then?
I don't have a vehicle.
I'm from Mississippi.
Why don't you wait over here for me, and I'll
be right back with you, OK?
OK.
I asked this one man if he could move his newspaper, you know,
so I can see everything up front and make
sure nothing would go wrong.
She's saying I might not be able to get
my flight to go to Austin, Texas, to see my brother.
NARRATOR: But Jeffrey may not be leaving Houston for some time.
This young boy that's over there in the NYPD shirt,
apparently inbound was impersonating
an officer, impersonating Secret Service, and so forth.
They said he was acting just very strange.
And one customer was reading the newspaper,
and he was like, move that.
I got to keep an eye on things going on down the aisle,
and so forth.
So he upset the passengers as well.
Have you been drinking alcohol?
I smell it.
Like, one or two scotch drinks.
One or two scotch drinks?
Yes, sir.
All right.
Well, unfortunately, it's a chance
they won't let you fly today due to acting too suspicious,
telling people that you're a Secret Service
and that you're a police officer and a federal agent
and all this other-- - Well, no.
I never told them that.
Well, apparently you have.
All right?
You know, it's against the law to impersonate
a police officer. You know that, right?
Yes, sir.
Especially here in the state of Texas.
- I lost somebody in 9/11. - I understand it.
I understand.
I think everyone in the United States
has lost someone in 9/11, all right?
It was a lot of planes that went down,
a lot of people that died.
But that still didn't give you a right to impersonate
a police officer.
You can't do that.
You definitely can't do that, especially now.
All right, what we're going to do right now
is we're going to see if they're going to put
you on a different flight.
If not, you're going to stay with us.
See, I smell the alcohol.
That smell getting stronger and stronger.
All right, now, as long as you're-- see,
you're calm right now, so I'm not
worried about trying to put you in jail
for PI or anything like that.
Yes, sir.
Just stay here and wait a minute.
I'm going to check with him.
All right, well, we'll see if we can find out where
the flight attendant is, make sure if there's nothing
else missing for y'all's part.
And then we'll decide what we're going to do with him.
He told us he was with the New York Police Department
when he got on the airplane, and that he wanted
a spot to sit on the airplane where
he could watch the airplane.
And then he started to tell us that he
was, like, a federal marshal, but he
was under top secret stuff.
And I told him, you don't have to watch over this airplane.
I'm keeping watch on this airplane.
I said, you don't have the credentials.
You're not a federal marshal, so sit down.
Well, he wouldn't stay seated.
He kept coming back there and bothered us through the
whole trip about this and that.
So I finally told him, look, you're just full of [bleep]..
Now go sit down, OK?
So he said I was cussing him out.
I said I wasn't cussing him out.
It was just-- he was just full of crap.
Let me ask you this, Rich.
Did he show you any type of credential?
No.
No credentials.
Did he tell you to go and do something because he
was a police officer?
No, he didn't.
OK.
This man in front of him had a newspaper up.
He went over there and moved the man's hand
over with the newspaper and said,
could you move your newspaper over so I
can look down the aisle?
We don't play those kind of games, not these days
after 9/11 especially.
I'm just going to go evaluate it now and see what HPD says.
If they say he's OK, then I'm going to let him go.
I'm just going to have him wait a little bit.
If they say he broke the law, then
he's not going to go anywhere.
We spoke to the flight attendant,
and they confirmed that you were basically
being a nuisance on the flight, as far as that's concerned.
The fortunate thing for you is that you didn't interfere
with the flight, and you did finally
go and sit down when he instructed
you to go and sit down.
Yes, sir.
We cannot and we will not tolerate any type of activity
such as what you've just done.
You've become very close to being arrested on top of that
for impersonating a police officer
by merely stating that you are.
Yes, sir.
What I need you to do is to make sure that they're
not any other problems.
Yes, sir.
Because if there are, then we will have to get involved.
And if we get involved, then it's
going to be problems for you.
- Yes, sir. - OK.
- I appreciate it. - All right.
Sorry about that.
All right.
Just make sure that you don't do that.
That's not nothing to play with, OK?
- Yes, sir. - All right?
- Yes, sir. - OK.
All right.
Good news is he's not going to jail.
Apparently, he didn't break the law, so--
I mean, I think he's safe to fly.