Aditya Singh, 36, was arrested on January 16 after living as a squatter at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for three months.
New safety footage shows the moment when a man who had been living unnoticed at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for three months was arrested while wearing a yellow safety jacket.
Aditya Singh, 36, was arrested on January 16 after living as a squatter at the airport for months without suspicion.
Singh, who is unemployed and living with ‘roommates’ in Orange, Los Angeles, fled to Chicago on Oct. 19 and was “too scared to fly home to LA because of COVID,” assistant lawyer Kathleen Hagerty said. said.
Instead of leaving, Singh decided to drop off in a safe part of the airport.
He apparently pretended to be an airport worker when he was questioned by uniformed police officers outside a toilet at the airport, the busiest in the country.
New video footage of his arrest shows the moment when officers interrogated at the airport outside Singh on January 16 outside Singl’s airport. He was wearing a bright yellow safety vest and sweatpants.
In the footage, Singh meets a police knockout and searches before being escorted
Police said he was found in possession of an airport operations manager’s security letter that had been misplaced around the time Singh started living at the airport.
On the video footage of the arrest obtained by ABC News, a group of officers can stand still to interrogate him and he holds out his arms to search before walking away with them.
He is in possession of a security letter from an airport manager, who was reported missing on October 26, about the time Singh started living at the airport.
Singh, who has a master’s degree in hospitality and has no criminal background, said he survived on food from other airport passengers.
According to Fox25, he allegedly made a home for himself in Terminal 2 near gate F12 between the Cinnabon store and a shoemaker.
He was eventually arrested when two United Airlines employees became suspicious of him and confronted Singh, who then showed him the airport identification badge he had found.
He is charged with trespassing on an airport in a restricted area and stealing less than $ 500.
Singh in the photo on the left when he was a graduate student at Oklahoma State University and on the right in a photo on social media
Shortly after his arrest, Singh was released on $ 10,000 and had to wear an electronic single bracelet and he moved into a homeless shelter in Chicago, according to NBC Chicago.
As a condition of bail, he is ordered to stay away from the airport. His next court date is scheduled for March 2 in Skokie.
The Chicago Department of Aviation said in a statement, “While this incident is still under investigation, we were able to determine that this man does not pose a security risk to the airport or the traveling public.”
“We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate this matter,” the statement added.
Friends of Singh expressed shock at the news that he was squatting at the airport.
He was eventually arrested when two United Airlines employees became suspicious of him and confronted Singh, who then showed him the airport identification badge he had found.
“It was very different from him to do something like just switch off from the outside world,” said Adam Dinkledine, who shared a home with Singh in the fall of 2017 when they were both students at Oklahoma State University. said.
‘I certainly would not have seen it coming at all. I hope he can get help suitable for this situation, ‘he added.
‘He will enter a room and illuminate the space. He was an excellent example of what a person in the hospitality industry wants to do, engage and inspire others, ‘Katherine Ruck, who worked with Singh in the Taylor’s Dining Room of Oklahoma State, a restaurant affiliated with the campus’s Hospitality School said.