Man says airline stopped him on suspicion he was trafficking his children

American Airlines has apologized to a Black musician who said that he was stopped on suspicion that he was trafficking his own children, who are biracial, on a flight last month. Many airlines, including American, have adopted policies and training programs to prevent human trafficking and child exploitation. But the experience described by the musician, David Ryan Harris, a guitarist and singer-songwriter who has performed with John Mayer, was the latest to draw attention to concerns that such programs may lead to racial discrimination. Harris, 55, said that he and two of his children, Truman, 12, and Hendrix, 7, were flying on American Airlines from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Sept. 15 to see the Los Angeles Rams play the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. About 30 minutes before the plane landed, Harris said, a flight attendant asked his children some questions, including what their names were. Harris said he had to prompt Hendrix, who is shy and had been woken up early to catch the flight, to respond. After the plane landed, Harris said, he and his children were met at the top of the jet bridge by an American Airlines employee and four police officers. “Apparently, a flight attendant had called ahead with some sort of concern that perhaps my mixed children weren’t my children because they were unresponsive during an interaction with her,” he said in one of several videos describing the episode that he posted on Instagram last month. Harris added: “So we’re met, embarrassingly so, by this A.A. employee and police officers. They question my kids: ‘Are my kids OK?’ And I wanted to go through the roof. But I did not want my kids to see me handle the situation with anything other than grace and class.” Harris said he and his children were eventually allowed to continue on to the baggage claim area, but were not given an apology.<br/>