UPDATED 5/24, 5:55 p.m.: Brendan Langley, the former NFL player who got into an altercation with a United Airlines employee, has released a statement addressing the incident via his attorney, TMZ reports.
“Brendan Langley was minding his business walking through the airport with his bags when he was accosted by a United Airlines employee who claimed to ‘run the airport,’” Brendan’s attorney Alan Jackson said. “When Brendan tried to ignore him, the assailant followed and harassed Brendan, calling him a ‘d***’ and a ‘p****’ and challenging him to fight.”
Jackson continued, “Footage from the airport security cameras establishes without question that Brendan was in reasonable fear of physical harm, and reasonably and lawfully defended himself. We do not expect charges to be filed against Brendan.”
UPDATED 5/24, 12:25 p.m.: The employee from the video lost his job and his opponent was briefly arrested.
“United Ground Express informed us that the employee has been terminated,” a United Airlines representative told the New York Post, with the company in question being United’s subsidiary for connections.
The other man in the scuffle was identified as 27-year-old football player Brendan Langley, formerly a cornerback for the Denver Broncos. Per CNN citing a Port Authority statement, he was arrested on a simple assault charge and released on his own recognizance. The outlet adds that he signed with the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders in February.
“The Calgary Stampeders football club is aware of the reports concerning Brendan Langley,” the organization wrote in a statement. “The team is currently looking into the matter in order to learn the full details and will have no further comment until the investigation is complete.”
Langley was drafted by Denver in 2017.
See original story below.
A new video shows a one-on-one fight at Newark Airport between a man who appears to be a passenger and an employee at the United Airlines check-in station.
The clip has been shared with numerous timeframes, some edited to show a different person slapping first, but the largest-size video we could find shows some initial slaps and punches from the man in a hoodie, directed at the man in the vest, as well as an initial slap from the employee in a vest, before things get bad.
After the employee slaps the apparent passenger—with luggage by his side—in the face, this leads to a couple finishing punches from the man in the hoodie, which send the man in the vest falling backward on some boxes. As he gets up, he tries to continue the fight with a bloody face.
Despite throwing slaps of his own, the man in the vest appears to not have been arrested following the incident. PIX 11 reports that the man in the vest, who works for a subsidiary company affiliated with the airline, was not taken into custody, while the man in the hoodie was taken into custody, per a United spokesperson. His charges remain unclear.
“United Airlines does not tolerate violence of any kind at our airports or onboard our planes and we are working with local authorities to further investigate this matter,” a United Airlines spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Even the Game shared the clip on his Instagram page, alongside a couple appropriate emojis. While it’s unclear why this all went down in the first place, the video is still continuing to make its rounds online.
