6A - Wednesday, August 11, 2010 * Jackson County Floridan NATIONAL www.JCFLORIDAN.com Flight attendant's grand exit draws charges, fans BY'DEEPTI HAJELA AND SAMANTHA GROSS ASSoCIATEI- PRESS WRITER NEW YORK - No fed-up worker has ever said "I've had it" quite like 'Steven Slater. Prosecutors say the JetBlue flight attendant flipped out over a fight with an agitated traveler Monday, cursing over the intercom before grabbing some beer from the plane's galley and making a grand exit down the emergency slide at Kennedy Airport. He has been charged with felonies but ele- vated to folk-hero status by thou- sands who shrugged off allega- tions that Slater endangered others and praised him for his take-this- job-and-shove-it moment. ' Slater, whose father was an air- line pilot, wore a slight smile Tuesday as he was led into a Queens courtroom to be arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and tres- passing, counts that carry a maxi- mum penalty of seven years in prison. The judge set his bail at $2,500, which remained unpaid late Tuesday. afternoon. The 38- year-old airline veteran, who lives steps from the beach in Queens a few miles from the airport, had been flying long enough to see much of the gleam of the air travel experience tarnished by frayed nerves, rising fees, plunummeting airline profits and packed cabins. "One by one all of these niceties This screen grab taken from MySpace shows Steven Slater. Slater, a flight attendant for JetBlue Airways Corp., looked pleased and relieved after cursing out a passen er on an airplane public- address system, grabbing some beer from the galley and using an emergency slide to hop off, another passenger said Tuesday. Steven Slater lost his temper after a passenger accidentally hit him on the head with luggage on the ground at Kennedy Airport on Monday, police said. - AP Photo have been removed from the cus- tomer experience. I think subcon- sciously, it's causing passengers to be very angry," said Pauline Frommer, creator of the Pauline Frommer Guides and daughter of Arthur Frommer. 'There's an us- versus-them mentality.", Sentiment online appeared to fall in Slater's court. By early Tuesday afternoon, more than 20,000 people had declared them- selves supporters of Slater on Facebook, and the number was growing by thousands every hour. At least one fan set up a legal fund on his behalf. "Overwhelmingly people said it should have been the passenger who was ejected from the plane," said George Hobica, founder of AirfareWatchdog.com, speaking about response to his site's blog on the incident. "I've never seen such an outpouring of support for a flight attendant." Slater's attorney, Howard Turman, said his client had been drawn into a fight between two female passengers over space in' the overhead bins as the Pittsburgh-to-New York flight was awaiting takeoff. Somehow, Slater was hit in the head, Turman said. After JetBlue Flight 1052 land- ed in New York, one of the women who had been asked to gate-check her bag was enraged that it wasn't immediately available, Turman said. "The woman was outraged and cursed him out a great deal," Turmhn said. "At some point, I think he just wanted to avoid con- flict with her." That's when he deployed the slide, Turman said. A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the airport, said Slater took at least * one beer from the plane galley on his way out. "Those of you who have shown Search for fugitive focuses on Mont., Canada BY MATT VOLZ ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER CODY, Wyo. - Authorities Tuesday focused on western Montana and southwest Canada in the search for an escaped convict from Arizona and his suspected accomplice who fashion themselves a present-day "Bonnie and Clyde." U.S. marshals said there have been reports that the accomplice, Casslyn Welch, was spotted Sunday at a restaurant in St. Mary, Mont., near Glacier National Park. Montana's acting mar- shal, Rod Ostermiller, said there were multiple other tips from the Glacier area, but he didn't say whether any included sightings of escapee John McCluskey. The national park abuts the Canadian border in rugged terrain, but the bor- der to the east, along the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, is fairly flat. Glacier County Undersheriff Jeff Fauque said there are several small roads that cross the border. "If you are really dedi- cated to getting across without being detected, you can do it," he said. A U.S. Border Patrol hel- icopter joined the search Tuesday, but authorities on both sides of the rambling border acknowledged it was impossible to com- pletely secure it. Sgt. Patrick Webb, a, spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Calgary, Alberta, said Mounties have been check- ing out reports that the pair had been sighted, but none has been substantiated. "We've got zero. We've got nothing that says they're here," Webb said. Fidencio Rivera, chief deputy U.S. marshal for the Arizona district, said the last confirmed sighting of McCluskey and Welch together was Friday in Billings, Mont., and that wasn't confirmed until Monday. Rivera said the couple have connections in Montana, and marshals are also pursuing leads in Indiana and Pennsylvania, where the fugitives also have ties. Rivera promised more arrests of people suspected of helping the pair and said details would be announced later in the day. The Arizona attorney general's office on Monday charged McCluskey's mother and ex-wife with helping the inmates after they escaped. Another prisoner .who escaped with McCluskey waived his right to fight extradition to Arizona. Tracy Province, 42, appeared in court in Cody on Tuesday, one day after he was captured in .the small town of Meeteetse. He waived the right to fight extradition to Arizona and signed a waiver form in handcuffs. Given the attention the case has received, Park County Circuit Judge Bruce Waters said he expected Province to be returned to Arizona soon. Province was caught Monday as he. walked in sleepy Meeteetse, Wyo., steps from a church where he sat in the pews a day earlier and sang "Your Grace Is Enough." A woman he talked to after church recognized him from a photograph shown on television, but he went undetected at one of the Tracy Province, an escaped convict from Arizona State Prison at Kingman, exits the Park County Courthouse in Cody, Wy., after waiving his right to contest extradition Tuesday. Province was arrested in Meeteetse, Wyo. Monday morning and will be transferred back to Arizona to be tried at a later date. - AP Photo/Cody Enterprise, Scott Salisbury GOLD STIMULUS WE BUY GOLD (Paid on the Spot!) S S1 S14432 Lafayette Street SM"*I#'Mn 526-5488 JEWELERS www.smithandsmithonline.com town's two bars the night before, even though his photo was broadcast on The Cowboy Bar's televi- sion during the news. Owner Jim Blake recalled Province staring straight at the TV screen but Blake said no one "put it together" because the photo wasn't a good like- ness. Butch Cassidy was arrested at the bar before being sent to prison in 1894 and Blake said Province was interested in hearing outlaw stories. He also talked about getting work as a ranch hand. "To tell you the truth, I realize he's a terrible per- son, but he actually was a pretty friendly fellow," Blake said. "He actually was a pretty nice guy." service from the Service Deparnont� , ' . -. : -. "4' *: . #1 TIR STORI TEAT EM ,'oh8 1 '09 .-GUs has been manapin. * 4204W LAFAYEn TS,. , RIANNA, FL 482-3051 *482-06.17' V'WW.RAHALCHEVYBUICK.COM "SERViCE $ 'PAITS' DEPARTMENT IS OPEN ON SATURDAYS 8:00AM TO 12:00PM FORYOUR CONVENIENCE ' ! ,, f * WpWpwpWaWaWaWW~ John W Kurpa, D.C., D.A.B.C.N., EA.C.EN. 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He said Slater ended by say- ing, "I've had it." He described the announcement as "the most inter- esting part of the day to that point" but didn't see Slater use the exit slide or grab the beer. It wasn't until he saw Slater on an airport train and overheard him talking about the escapade that he put it together. "He was smiling. He was happy he'd done this," Catelinet told NBC's "Today." Initially, authorities blamed Slater's blowup on a passenger refusing to sit down as the plane taxied to the gate. But after inter- viewing more witnesses, investiga- tors confirmed the dispute had begun in Pittsburgh and resumed at the end of the flight, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, speaking' on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. � IM