Posted on 12/07/2005 4:43:31 PM PST by ConservativeMind
MIAMI (AP) - An agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday after he bolted frantically from a jetliner that was about to take off, officials said. No bomb was found.
The man, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, was gunned down on a jetway just before the American Airlines plane was about to leave for Orlando, near his home in Maitland.
It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said.
According to a witness, the man frantically ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757, flailing his arms, while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.
The passenger indicated there was a bomb in his bag and was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft, Doyle said. The marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the ground, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag, Doyle said.
The plane, Flight 924, had arrived in Miami from Medellin, Colombia, just after noon, and the shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m. as the plane was about to take off for Orlando with the man and 119 other passengers and crew, American spokesman Tim Wagner said. Alpizar had arrived in Miami earlier in the day from Ecuador, authorities said.
After the shooting, investigators spread passengers' bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives, and bomb squad members blew up at least two bags.
No bomb was found, said James E. Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals field office in Miami. He said there was no reason to believe there was any connection to terrorists.
The concourse where the shooting took place was shut down for a half-hour, but the rest of the airport continued operating, officials said.
Mary Gardner, a passenger aboard the Orlando-bound flight, told WTVJ-TV in Miami that the man ran down the aisle from the rear of the plane. "He was frantic, his arms flailing in the air," she said. She said a woman followed, shouting, "My husband! My husband!"
Gardner said she heard the woman say her husband was bipolar - a mental illness also known as manic-depression - and had not had his medication.
Gardner said four to five shots were fired. She could not see the shooting.
After the shooting, police boarded the plane and told the passengers to put their hands on their heads, Gardner said.
"It was quite scary," she told the TV station via a cell phone. "They wouldn't let you move. They wouldn't let you get anything out of your bag."
There were only 33 air marshals at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Bush administration hired thousands more afterward, but the exact number is classified.
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Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
Take your medicines or get off the streets!
Yeah...that's the ticket....let's kill all the mentally ill....they annoying and a drain on our resources....
Oh yeah...let's not forget the gypsys....and those pesky jews....
We could build large camps.....
</sacasm>
Yep. Feel kinda sorry for the lunatic, but the marshall did exactly what he should have. Now wifey will be filing a billion dallar lawsuit within days.
I can just see the wingtip footprints in her yard today from the scores of amulance chasing scumbags.
He couldn't have known. Crazy or not the guy could have had a bomb. What if he had been carrying a bomb and the AM hesitated? A lot of people would have been blown up.
Kill only the mentally ill who are running off of a packed plane yelling they set a bomb while ignoring air marshals demands to freeze.
Righteous shooting, in my book.
The Libs are gonna try to have a field day with this
never bring a bomb threat to a gun fight
Bump
Definitely the right decision. If the guy's shouting that he has a bomb, shoot him. No use trying to get him to surrender--I doubt people who use bombs are planning on surviving their glorious martyrdom.
Pretty clean kill.
Insane people should not be allowed on airplanes.
Real bombers don't shout out that they have a bomb, they just try to set their shoes on fire in the bathroom.
People who are manic-depressive can still distinguish reality from fantasy, and respond appropriately to orders to stop, put their hands up, etc. Nobody shot this guy because he was "mentally ill", but because he was threatening to explode a bomb.
Natural selection at work.
You are going to cause a lot of traffic putting all those democrats on the road.
Idjit, if the SM had hesitated, you would be ranting, why did they not kill him before he set off the bomb.
Would you bet the lives of the 200 people on that plane and the 200 + inside the concourse where the plane was sitting?
It's a tragic story, but yes, the Air Marshals did the right thing.
Do Democrats think Miami air marshals lied?
This is a rundown of what happened at the Miami Airport on Wednesday:
A man aboard an American Airlines flight from Colombia:
1. Claimed he had a bomb.
2. Made threatening statements and exhibited erratic behavior.
3. Refused to comply with numerous and repeated demands to stop.
Authorities determined that:
1. The man posed a mortal threat to those around him.
2. The man refused to comply with their demands to disarm.
As a result, the man was shot and killed. This lessened and perhaps ended the threat against those on the plane. Future threats from others may have also been discouraged.
As it turned out, the man didn’t have a bomb, but those whose job it is to know believed that he could have. They judged that the man’s statements and actions posed too great a threat to take a chance – especially in a post-9/11 world. The air marshals launched a pre-emptive strike against a threat based on the best information available.
Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have not yet issued statements.
There is one good thing to come out of this, the world now knows that when it comes our commercial airlines our marshalls have been given the green light to shoot first and ask questions later. U.K. proved the same thing in July when they dusted that guy that ran from them.
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