A nearly minute-long video posted on Twitter shows an altercation already underway as both men slap each other in the face, stare each other down and start throwing punches. The employee stumbles, and a woman in the background cries for the men to stop.
Then, the video shows, the employee walks closer and apparently stuns Langley as he uses his left hand to hit his face.
“You saw that [expletive]?” Langley says.
As the fight continues, the employee falls backward. When he gets up and approaches Langley again, one side of his face is covered in blood.
The man seems shocked again, backing away and asking: “You want some more?”
Some of the conversation is difficult to understand, but the passenger appears to urge people nearby to restrain the employee.
“I’m not the one,” Langley says. “He works at the airport, and he assaulted me.”
Langley posted about the incident on his Twitter account in response to a TMZ story sharing the video. In other tweets, Langley paints the worker as the aggressor. “Every angle shows me walking away from buddy … he followed me all the way down to the kiosk just to cause me bodily harm. im honestly still shocked,” Langley wrote on Twitter.
The Washington Post was not able to reach Langley despite several efforts.
u can clearly see soooo many @united employees watching everything unfold while im basically begging for help. craziest part not one of them helped De-escalate the situation! it was like they wanted it to happen. like i had a target on my back
— 🥈🥇 (@trllang) May 23, 2022
The airline employee, whose name was not released, worked for United Ground Express, a subsidiary that supports airport operations. United Ground Express informed the parent company it has terminated the worker, United Airlines said Monday.
“United Airlines does not tolerate violence of any kind at our airports or on board our planes and we are working with local authorities in their investigation of this matter,” the airline said in a statement provided to The Post.
Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
