Remember Karen McGee, the elderly, deaf woman who was arrested during a layover at the Austin airport in 2022? Law enforcement officers allegedly broke her wrist after taking her into custody and, according to her lawsuit, she was left for three days in the Travis County Jail, frightened, unsure of why she’d been locked up, clutching her arm close to her body.
McGee filed her lawsuit against the city and county after being released, claiming officers used excessive force against her, a violation of her civil rights, and didn’t communicate with her effectively, a violation of her right to be properly accommodated for deafness under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The civil rights part of her lawsuit was thrown out last summer, but federal Judge Dustin Howell recommended on Jan. 2 that the ADA portion go forward.
In his ruling, Howell wrote that McGee’s disability should have been obvious to the city and county officers – she was wearing hearing aids – and that she has made a strong case that their ineffective communication led to her broken wrist. “It’s a pretty damning decision,” McGee’s attorney, Rebecca Webber, said. “The judge is pretty clear that what the city and the county did was not okay.”
McGee was en route from Atlanta to Seattle on Sept. 13, 2022, when she stopped in Austin for a connecting flight. The lawsuit says that the noisy airport interfered with her hearing aids so she turned them down, missing an announcement that the gate for her flight had changed. When it didn’t board, she talked with an airline employee, who issued her a ticket for a flight leaving that evening.
While waiting, McGee learned that another plane at the same gate was preparing to depart for Seattle. She spoke with three successive airline employees to ask if she could take the earlier flight. According to Judge Howell’s summation, she did so in a loud voice because her hearing aids continued to work poorly. The employees shook their heads or did not respond. One assumed McGee was drunk, canceled her ticket, and called security.
“The judge is pretty clear that what the city and the county did was not okay.” – Attorney Rebecca Webber
Airport video shows that when Austin police officers arrived they stood in a semicircle over McGee, who was seated. By then, Webber said, McGee was emotionally shut down and confused. Her hearing aids were still lowered and, though she is a lip reader, she couldn’t see the officers’ mouths. The officers read her a notice of trespass, and she didn’t respond. They lifted her into a wheelchair and pushed her to the non-secure side of the airport. One advised her to call a rideshare and warned that she would be arrested if she stood up from the wheelchair. But the officer delivered the warning while walking behind McGee and she did not hear it, Webber said. After 10 minutes waiting in front of the airport, McGee stood up from the wheelchair. The officers handcuffed her and confiscated her phone – which controlled her hearing aids. They transported her to jail.
Upon arriving, McGee was strip searched. She told the corrections officers she couldn’t hear, but, according to Webber, they continued to bark commands at her. “They were ordering her to do things. She wasn’t doing them quick enough, because she didn’t know what they were telling her to do. And so they just started doing them for her, just roughly undressing her and pulling her jewelry off. And in doing so they snapped her wrist.”
Webber said McGee lost consciousness after her wrist was broken and awoke a day later in jail clothes that had been put on inside out. A guard noticed she was holding her arm close to her body and provided her Tylenol, but she was not sent to a doctor. After being released, McGee fell to the sidewalk outside the jail. An EMS technician helped her contact her husband and get to a hotel. She had surgery on her arm after making it home to Florida, Webber said.
Webber argues the failures of city and county employees to adequately communicate with McGee violated her ADA rights, leading to her broken wrist, emotional trauma, and consequent panic attacks. She said the city and county have each responded to the lawsuit with their own arguments.
The county had not responded to our requests for comment as of press time. A city spokesperson declined to answer questions, saying the city will respond to allegations “through the appropriate court channels.”
“The city’s defense is that, well, no one knew she was deaf, even though she wears very expensive high-end hearing aids,” Webber said. “I don’t actually think that is going to work out in court, but that’s the position they’re taking. The county is saying, yeah, we knew she was deaf – because it’s all over our records – but she never said ‘I need this’ or ‘I need that.’ So their defense is more that she didn’t advocate enough for herself, so they couldn’t accommodate her.”
Webber also said that the city and county don’t agree on who broke McGee’s wrist. “The city says Mrs. McGee was fine when APD dropped her off. The county, they’re like, ‘APD dropped her off with a broken wrist – her wrist wasn’t broken here.’ So they are going to be pointing fingers at each other if we get far enough.”
Webber will be deposing various city and county officials under oath in the coming month, she told the Chronicle. If the city and county don’t settle out of court, she expects the case to be heard in the fall.
This article appears in January 24 • 2025.