Marine ‘slammed' passenger who tried to open door mid-flight: ‘He was up to something crazy'
Jody Armentrout, a sergeant major who has served more than 20 years in the US Marine Corps, said the unidentified passenger caught his attention on Saturday morning's All Nippon Airways flight from Japan to Texas when he took down his backpack and went aimlessly from bathroom to bathroom.
'He came out of that one and began pacing up and down the aisle, so that just threw my radar on,' the 50-year-old Marine told NBC News.
'His eyes — you could definitely tell there was something going on.'
3 Sgt. Maj. Jody Armentrout said he tackled a passenger who tried to open an airplane door midflight.
U.S. Marines
Keeping a close watch on the crazed-looking passenger, Armenault said he watched him start to eye up the emergency exit beside him.
The Marine stood up and blocked the door — just for the other passenger to turn around and burst through the galley toward the door on the opposite side.
'He grabbed a strap around the door, pulled it off, and about that time is when I took him and slammed him, put him on the ground,' Armentrout told the outlet.
3 Officials said the man was suffering a medical crisis and he was taken to a hospital in Seattle.
FOX 26
'And then there was an older gentleman sitting on that side [who] woke up, and he got up and kind of helped me.'
Armentrout then used zip ties to secure the troubled passenger to his seat as the Houston-bound flight was instead diverted to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington. He sat next to him for the remainder of the flight from Japan, where the Marine is based.
The unidentified passenger was experiencing a medical crisis, officials have said. He was taken to a hospital and had not been charged as of Wednesday.
The Marine said he felt compelled to act to save others onboard — including babies — with some of the other passengers later thanking him for his potentially life-saving response.
'I just knew he was up to something crazy, and at the end of the day, I was willing to take the risk of him saying 'I'm not doing anything' and then just them making him go sit back down than me allowing him to do anything that's going to put anybody at risk,' Armentrout told NBC News.
It was not the end of the drama on the flight. When the plane landed in Seattle, another passenger ' frustrated at the flight diversion' punched a bathroom door, according to the FBI's Seattle field office.
3 The Marine zip-tied the man to a chair as they diverted to Seattle.
FOX 26
That person, not publicly identified, was also removed by the Port of Seattle Police from the flight, but hjas likewise not been charged as of Wednesday.
'It was a weird flight,' said Armentrout, who will be heading back to Japan next week.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
38 minutes ago
- New York Post
Texas cop vows to give ‘everyone' a ticket after she didn't get laid the night before
A Texas cop vowed to give 'everyone' a ticket after she didn't get laid the night before, according to a since-deleted viral TikTok. The post showed uniformed Harris County Constable Precinct 5 Deputy Jennifer Escalera writing on a notepad with the caption, 'Didn't get cracked last night so everyone is getting a ticket' — a nod to her apparently unfulfilling sex life. The cop blurred parts of her uniform but left her nametag visible in her post. Advertisement The incident is now under investigation, according to Fox 26. 'Our administration is aware and internal affairs has opened an investigation. We have no other comment at this time,' the constable's office said. Advertisement Texas cop Jennifer Escalera wears her uniform in several of her TikTok posts. TikTok/@ Escalera is now under investigation over one post. TikTok/@ Escalera was sworn into the force in September 2021, according to a previous Facebook post from the precinct. The female cop's TikTok account features several posts showing her in uniform. She also posts about being a mom. Advertisement One of the posts shows Escalera getting ready 'to work as a female Police Officer' as the text across the screen reads, 'contemplating if I really need this job, knowing that I do.' Residents of the Texas precinct were outraged over some of the cop's posts. 'I think it's really inappropriate and disrespectful,' resident Alex Fitch told Fox 26. Advertisement 'Not as much distrust, but you can't rely on them. It makes them look unprofessional when they start posting videos like that. You can't take them seriously,' Fitch said. 'Then they wonder why, when you see them, they say, 'Why don't you respect me?' or, 'Why are you talking to me like that?' Well, you don't treat yourself like a woman, and you ain't treating yourself like a police officer.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Soulja Boy Arrested on Weapons Charge During Los Angeles Traffic Stop
Originally appeared on E! Online Soulja Boy has found himself in more legal trouble. The "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" hitmaker (real name DeAndre Cortez Way) was arrested on a weapons charge during a traffic stop in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, E! News has confirmed. The incident happened just after 2:30 a.m. on August 3 when police made a traffic stop near the intersection of Melrose Ave and Genesee Ave during which Soulja Boy, a passenger in the car, was detained and subsequently arrested for carrying a firearm as a convicted felon, the Los Angeles Police Department stated. The 35-year-old was then booked just after 6 a.m. at the LAPD Metropolitan Detention Center, according to inmate records provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. It's unclear if Soulja Boy has since been released or if he is still in custody. E! News has reached out to Soulja Boy's rep for comment and has yet to hear back. The rapper More from E! Online Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall Shares Cryptic Message Amid And Just Like That's Final Season Natasha Richardson's Sister Reacts to Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson's Sweet Photos Ed Kelce's Girlfriend Maureen Maguire Dead at 74 This isn't the first time that the "Turn My Swag On" artist has been arrested for carrying firearms. Back in 2019, Soulja Boy served over three months behind bars for a probation violation after being arrested for carrying firearms and ammunition, per the Los Angeles County Superior Courts. Additionally, the rapper's latest arrest comes just a few months after he'd been ordered to pay an unnamed former assistant after being found liable of assault, sexual battery, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and failure to pay wages. Back in April, a California jury awarded his accuser $4 million in compensatory damages, per the plaintiff's legal team. Soulja Boy's lawyer Rickey Ivie slammed the decision at the time. "It is unfortunate that aspersions and misperceptions of a culture were allowed to influence the trial," he said in a statement to NBC News. "Mr. Way fully intends to pursue his post-trial remedies and to fight for a just result in this case." The "Turn My Swag On" artist had previously denied the claims against him, with a spokesperson telling TMZ, "Soulja would never put his hands on a female. He wouldn't beat a woman or put his hands on a woman." (E! and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family.) For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
NBC News
5 hours ago
- NBC News
Social Security number leaked? Chances are, a criminal is already trying to use it
Data breaches that expose the personal information of millions of people can have very real consequences for individuals, most notably: identity theft. A new study found that the more of a person's personal information is easily accessible to criminals on the dark web, the likelier it is that that person will be a target for criminals. The odds skyrocket if the information includes the person's Social Security number, which is usually necessary for financial applications like opening a bank account, applying for a credit card or filing tax returns, all of which are common targets for fraudsters. The findings, published Monday by SentiLink, a company that monitors customer data for fraud on behalf of finance companies, are intuitive. But they are believed to be the first of their kind showing a clear correlation between the robust cybercriminal trade of people's identities and real-world attempts where criminals try to commit fraud against those victims. David Maimon, SentiLink's head of fraud insight, told NBC News he conducted the study by comparing three sets of data from people whose information is available online. For a baseline list of people whose names and addresses were available online, he used publicly available voter registration records. For a set of people whose names and addresses — but not Social Security numbers — were widely traded among criminals, he took names off stolen checks from a ring of check fraud thieves that operated on Telegram. For a list of people whose names, addresses and Social Security numbers were all widely traded among cybercriminals, he downloaded a database of around 100,000 victims, cobbled together from various hacks and repeatedly traded on the dark web since 2021. Maimon then compared more than 2,000 people from those datasets with SentiLink's internal records of attempted identity theft to see how often each of those people had been targeted. The results were dramatic. Only 2.1% of the people from voter registration forms had been targeted by identity thieves. Of those whose names were found in the stolen check ring, 12.1% had been targeted. But nearly all people in the 2021 database with Social Security numbers — 97% — had been victims of attempted identity theft, Maimon found. Data breaches have become increasingly common, to the point where most Americans' information has been repeatedly stolen. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission received 1.1 million claims of identity theft in 2024, though that is believed to be a severe undercount of the complete number of victims. Even children often have their Social Security number stolen, and credit monitoring services rarely help victims much. According to statistics provided to NBC News by the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 1,857 new data breaches in 2024 that included Americans' Social Security numbers. While Social Security numbers are routinely hacked, it's often impossible for a victim to know how widely their information has been shared — a key component of SentiLink's findings. Not all breaches are equal, and cybercriminals often sell hacked data only to the highest bidder to keep it more exclusive. When a person's information does become widely repackaged and repeatedly traded between criminals, they are targeted by thieves repeatedly for a longer period of time, Maimon found. The best course of action, Maimon said, is for people to freeze their credit ratings with the three major credit agencies and to monitor their ChexSystems Consumer Score to see if anyone has opened bank accounts in their name.
