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JetBlue Memo Says Slater Lied About Dispute
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Aug 14, 2010
Modified Aug 14, 2010
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Aug 14, 2010
Modified Aug 14, 2010
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Oh the fleeting star of celebrity. According to AP, JetBlue has yet to find anyone on Steven Slater's flight who can confirm that he got into such a nasty dispute with a passenger. Slater claimed his grand, double-fisting exit was preceded by a fight with a rude passenger, but passenger reports say it was Slater who was rude for most of the flight, and nobody has recalled the final dispute. Now a few are saying Slater, who may have been drunk on the flight, was lying about the head gash that may have started it all.
Howard Deneroff said he was one of the first on the plane, and listened as Slater argued with a passenger over her luggage. "He was telling her her bag was too big, and it has to be checked," Deneroff told the Daily News. "She said what most people do: She had valuable things in there and didn't want it checked." However, he didn't hear the woman hit Slater with the bag, which Slater claimed is what caused him to bleed from his forehead. Another passenger said Slater was already bleeding before anyone got on. "I'm 100 percent sure the gash was there, and it was bleeding" before she got on, said passenger Marta Effinger-Crichlow.
But in a world where a good exit can fan the flames of public sympathy, do things like facts really matter? Courtney Cachet at HuffPo says whatever the truth is, Slater is a star—and he's just like us! She writes, "The fact is that people have become ruder, nastier and selfish....I felt really bad for Steve Slater. I could totally see why he did what he did." Sure, but does that justify him doing it? "It seems that at some point or another, we have all been just dying to tell the world fuck you, grab a couple of beers and go down the damn slide!...The difference is, thankfully most of us don't act on it...While I'm sure Mr. Slater had these same concerns, he simply reached a point where he just didn't give a shit." Or maybe the rest of would pull a Slater if we could just exit our offices via emergency slides.
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