More recent media reports confirm that what happened is that Holmes was asked to turn off his ipod and that he did so when asked, but left the ear buds in and fell asleep or appeared to fall asleep. The flight attendant interpreted the presence of the ear buds in his ears as refusal to comply. When confronted, Holmes handed the ear buds to the attendant or another passenger, who verified that there was no sound coming out. Thus, the police report that he had "complied."
I guess there are several lessons here:
Flight Attendants post 911 have a lot of leeway in assessing passenger behavior, so it's a good idea to bend over backwards not only to comply but also to appear to comply with what they ask.
No one is going to cut Santonio Holmes a millimeter of slack or give him the benefit of the doubt, given his history, and he's going to have to learn to live with that.
It's probably not a bad idea to get all the facts before going after someone, even someone as moronic as Holmes.
(As a Frequent Flyer, on the subject of turning off
all electronic devices on takeoff and landing: it's annoying since most devices don't present a hazard, but flight attendants can't be expected to be distinguishing devices that do present a hazard from those that don't when they have a couple hundred passengers. Just obey them, it's only ten minutes.)
