Cindy McCain, the late Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) widow, tweeted an apology Wednesday after police refuted her claim she saved a child from a human trafficking attempt at an airport.
“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,’” McCain tweeted.
McCain, a staunch anti-trafficking advocate, apologized after Phoenix authorities pushed back against her claim in a Monday interview with KTAR News 92.3 FM that she stopped a human trafficking attempt.
“If you see something, say something. That very thing happened to me at the Phoenix airport last Friday,” McCain said. “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,” she added. “She was waiting for the guy who bought the child get off an airplane.”
But Phoenix police said McCain’s account of the events was inaccurate and found no human trafficking had occurred.
Phoenix Police Sgt. Armando Carbajal told KTAR News 92.3 FM in a Wednesday interview that officers conducted a welfare check on the child, finding “no evidence of criminal conduct or child endangerment.”
McCain sits on the McCain Institute’s Human Trafficking Advisory Council and is co-chair of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s Arizona Human Trafficking Council.