American arrested for attacking hotel staffer at airport

Rodney Philips, 49, an American national, is arrested on assault charges on Wednesday after attacking hotel staffer Surasak Areephan, 48, at Suvarnabhumi airport on April 15. (Photo by Sutthiwit Chayutworakan)

An American tourist who allegedly grabbed a hotel staffer and threw him to the ground at Suvarnabhumi airport has been arrested.

Rodney Phillips, 49, was arrested and taken to Suvarnabhumi airport on Tuesday following the alleged attack on Surasak Areephan, 48, a staff member of a Bangkok hotel on April 15.

Footage from security television cameras installed on the second floor of the airport’s passenger terminal showed a foreigner, identified later as Mr Phillips, holding Mr Surasak and throwing him in the ground. The attacker smashed Mr Surasak’s head into the floor several times in full view of other passengers at the airport.

Airport security guards intervened to help Mr Surasak, who sustained a broken bone in his left arm. The attacker fled, but was later caught.

Mr Surasak said he was sent to pick up hotel guests at the airport that day. Before the attack, he placed a poster with names of hotel guests at an iron barrier by the passengers’ exit gate, and then left the area. On his return, he noticed the poster had disappeared. He asked representatives from other hotels if they knew what had happened to it, and was told that a foreign man had taken it.

He went looking for the man, he said, and on spotting him, asked for his poster back. The man replied angrily, he said, and then grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground, breking his left arm. Even then, the man did not stop, Mr Surasak said, knocking his head into the floor several times before security guards at the airport came to his rescue. He insisted he had never seen the attacker before.

During the interrogation, the American national confessed to having attacked the victim, police said, saying an illness coupled with a flight cancellation caused him to suffer stress that drove him to attack the man, said police.

Officers pressed assault charges against the American. He was held in police custody pending a court trial.