You don't think the pilots would have been radioing back info from the cabin crew en route? Seat, name on manifest, nature of disruption? You'd think in an hour or so those on the ground could get quite a bit of intelligence on an internationally-cleared pax.
But you are right about the Twitter videos - the one I took a still from - the lady holding a purse standing next to the FA with the disruptive pax kneeling in the aisle - was timestamped about an hour before the police came aboard. By the way, the video of that still shows a child standing by the lady with the purse. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed. I mean - smiling lady and child standing a few quick strides from the guy, who's kneeling, looking down (presumably praying)???
Why the heck they didn't grab and restrain the guy I guess will be revealed in due course - well, I think I can guess the reason and I can respect cultural norms; and maybe they didn't think the guy was dangerous.
