Cindy McCain has apologized after police disputed her claim that she thwarted a human-trafficking attempt at a Phoenix airport.
Sen. John McCain’s widow, an anti-trafficking activist, made the assertion during a Monday interview with radio station KTAR in Glendale, Arizona.
“I came in from a trip I’d been on and I spotted — it looked odd — it was a woman of a different ethnicity than the child, this little toddler she had, and something didn’t click with me. … I went over to the police and told them what I saw and they went over and questioned her and, by God, she was trafficking that kid,” said McCain, co-chair of the Arizona Governor’s Council on Human Trafficking.
“She was waiting for the guy who bought the child to get off an airplane,” she added.
Phoenix police Sgt. Armando Carbajal told KTAR on Wednesday that officers conducted a welfare check on a child at the Sky Harbor International Airport on Jan. 30 at McCain’s request.
He said the “officers determined there was no evidence of criminal conduct or child endangerment.”
McCain, 64, apologized for the incident on Twitter.
“At Phoenix Sky Harbor, I reported an incident that I thought was trafficking. I commend the police officers for their diligence. I apologize if anything else I have said on this matter distracts from ‘if you see something, say something,’” she wrote.
