CNN
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A mother is suing Southwest Airlines for racial discrimination, saying she was accused of human trafficking when traveling with her biracial baby.

Mary MacCarthy, who’s White, traveled from California to Denver with her daughter, who’s Black, to attend her brother’s funeral in October of 2021, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday.

“Unbeknownst to Ms. MacCarthy, while they were in the air, a Southwest employee called the Denver Police Department to report Ms. MacCarthy for suspected child trafficking for no reason other than the different color of her daughter’s skin from her own,” the go well with alleges.

As MacCarthy and her daughter had been strolling down the jet bridge, they had been confronted by Denver law enforcement officials, it continues.

“The officers started questioning Ms. MacCarthy and made it clear that they got the racially charged data that Ms. MacCarthy’s daughter was probably being trafficked by her just because Ms. MacCarthy is White and her daughter is Black.

After important questioning, throughout which Ms. MacCarthy’s daughter started to break down in tears, Ms. MacCarthy was finally allowed to go away by the officers, however not earlier than this show of blatant racism by Southwest Airlines brought on Ms. MacCarthy and her daughter excessive emotional misery,” the lawsuit provides.

MacCarthy believed the officers in Denver had been there to inform her about one other dying in her household however had been instructed an worker of the airline had reported her as a attainable human trafficker, according to the lawsuit.

In an interview with CNN following the incident final yr, MacCarthy shared an electronic mail she despatched to the airline asking for an apology.

In her electronic mail to Southwest’s media workforce, MacCarthy stated she needed a written apology from the airline, speedy reimbursement of the complete value of their tickets and “additional compensation to account for the trauma imposed on an innocent family, and especially on a grieving 10-year-old Black girl.”

At the time, Southwest stated they had been “disheartened” by her account of the occasions.

“We are conducting a review of the situation internally, and we will be reaching out to the customer to address her concerns and offer our apologies for her experience traveling with us,” Southwest Airlines spokesperson Dan Landson stated in an announcement to CNN in November 2021. “Our employees undergo robust training on Human Trafficking. Above all, Southwest Airlines prides itself on providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for the millions of customers who travel with us each year.”

A spokesperson for Southwest stated that they had no touch upon the pending litigation.

MacCarthy is asking for an unspecified award for damages, together with emotional misery, psychological anguish, struggling and inconvenience.