PET CAUSE
Family that lost dog in air horror joins LaG protest
TEARS AND ANGER flowed at a protest Sunday at LaGuardia Airport, where protesters supported a family as they demanded justice for their 10-month-old French bulldog killed after being stuffed in an overhead bin by a United Airlines flight attendant.
The poor pooch, Kokito, was in a dog carrier aboard a flight from Houston to LaGuardia. The flight crew said the case was blocking the aisle, so a flight attendant put it in the overhead storage bin, according to Kokito’s owner, Catalina Robledo.
The dog was dead when the flight landed.
Robledo’s 11-year-old daughter, Sophia Ceballos, remained distraught about the dog’s demise.
“I just think about him every day at school and I can’t concentrate,” she said. “I cry every night for him because it feels really bad without him.”
Around 20 protesters in the parking lot for Terminal A shook their heads in disgust, some holding dogs in their arms. Other pups sat on the pavement, wagging their tails.
The “dog-in” was organized by state Sen. Marisol Alcantara (D-Manhattan), who vowed to introduce legislation clarifying rules for pets on flights.
She dubbed the proposed rules Kokito’s Law, after the dog.
United called the incident a “tragic accident that should never have occurred.”
But Robledo’s attorney, Evan Oshan, said the flight attendant who stashed Kokito in the bin should be criminally charged.
The employee has not been publicly identified.
“There has been no apology from her,” Oshen said. “We want accountability and we want justice.”
Alcantara’s legislation would explicitly ban placing pets in overhead bins on flights, among other measures.
“Make no bones about it, United is in the doghouse and we will not tolerate their cruelty toward animals,” Alcantara said.