Passengers insulting cabin crew. What do you do? here is a case

[flapsforty]

VAFFPAX and Almondgrove, thank you for the input. It is heartening to read that some passengers would understand and even applaud the offloading of potential troublemakers.

Magic Buff, if only! That would be absolutely wonderful.

Rananim, agree with all you write. From my point of view, that's how it is. One caveat; I find that the incidence of pax with a phsychiatric condition or a full blown personality disorder appears to be on the increase.
Normal problem-pax, a cabin pro can and should be able to deal with, as you describe.
Mental patients are outside our remit.
Last year I had a chap who was completely psychotic. American footballer with extreme paranoia. It took all my wiles, considerable courage ( I was very afraid of him) and my complete, undivided 7 hour attention to keep this man from 'flipping' completely and going berserk.
We are not trained to deal effectively with people who are mentally ill.
Yet they fly.
But yes, your post sums it all up in a very balanced way.

There's one other aspect that I have no idea how to deal with, and which crops us every time.
Namely the fact that you hear later, from other pax, that the same individual had alreadycreated a disturbance on the ground, but that ground staff kept schtum and just shoved him/her onboard under the motto "good riddance".
It will likely always be thus, but is very frustrating.

13 please, perhaps if you re-read rananim's post, you will see that he does not actually empathise with seriously troublesome pax.
I read it to mean that he empathises with that vast majority of quiet well behaved pax who, in the post 911 USA, are afraid to make any wrong move at all for fear of the likely severe consequences heaped on them by over anxious ultra militant cabin crew.
But maybe I'm the one misreading his post.