Anoka County Sheriff's Office reviewing alleged racial profiling incident involving employee on Delta flight

The Anoka County Sheriff's Office is reviewing an incident involving an employee who was on a flight landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and is accused of racial profiling.

Airport police responded to a Delta flight arrival from Tampa, Fla., on Monday after two female passengers requested police due to "alleged suspicious actions and comments from a group of four male passengers during the flight," according to a statement from airport spokesman Jeff Lea.

Officers spoke with the women who made the complaint and the male passengers when they got off the plane and determined no action needed to be taken, according to the statement.

Louay Adley said in an interview Thursday that he was aboard the flight with his two cousins, who are all Palestinian, and they ran into a friend who is Egyptian. He went to the bathroom once, and his cousin followed him, Adley said. Afterward, they stretched out in the last aisle of the plane where no one was sitting.

A woman approached him, Adley said, and began asking where he was from and why he was traveling. Adley thought the woman was awkwardly flirting or joking around, he said. Since she was standing in the aisle, he pointed at another empty seat that was taken up by a black bag. He asked if the bag was hers and if she wanted to sit there and she said no, he said.

When the flight landed, the flight attendant announced that there was a medical emergency and Adley, 24, said he was stunned when they came to his row and escorted him and the three others — likely the only passengers speaking in Arabic — off the flight.

"This woman creates a story about me and gets three other people who have nothing to do with this kicked off a flight, humiliated, treated like animals. ... I feel belittled, like I'm some garbage," Adley said. "No one took me seriously."

They asked for more clarification about what had happened, but airport police would not answer their questions since there was no threat, Adley said.

According to a police report obtained by the Sahan Journal, the Anoka County employee, who identified herself as law enforcement but did not provide credentials, said the men got up multiple times to use the bathroom, whispered and had their arms around each other. She approached them and asked if they were on a guys trip and told police they said they were on a secret CIA mission and pointed out the black bag.

Adley said he joked to her that they were on a boys wedding mission.

His sister, Mnar Adley, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, where she shared their story. On Wednesday, Adley identified one of the women as an Anoka County Sheriff's Office employee in a post with millions of views. The employee's name is on social media but the Star Tribune is not naming her because her identity hasn't been confirmed and because there is no indication she is under criminal investigation.

The Anoka County Sheriff's Office said in a post on X that its employee "reported to the flight crew what they discerned to be suspicious activity involving 4 fellow passengers who had been seated nearby." The post did not describe the activity.