| "A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb" Maybe he said "I have a bim." |
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Posted on 12/08/2005 12:21:37 PM PST by Rennes Templar
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb
By SIOBHAN MORRISSEY/MIAMI
At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little too quick on the draw when they shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run off the airplane shortly before take-off.
"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."
When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back," McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"
Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife close behind him. "She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder," McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane."
McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do, with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to the side."
By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots."
McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.
"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."
In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should be dead right now."
And now he's made because they weren't nice to him! Wah!
susie
Curious but skeptical..... (is that like trust but verify?)
And, of course, extremely distrustful of the MSM....
susie
He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says
With this from yesterday:
''He didn't look stable,'' said John McAlhany, a Sebastian construction worker in seat 24-C. ...He could be describing a transition too, as in the guy looked normal in the terminal which snarfing a sandwich; but looked and acted like a raving lunatic while trying to get off the plane.
or "I love my mom"-
he was getting ready to pull his mom out of the bag.
"He Was Bi-Polar, Now He's Dead!"
One might say, now he's apolar.
I'm not saying what he said was true, but a SWAT team did storm the plane before the passengers were taken off. It's entirely possible that they were armed with shotguns.
Zactly why I don't fly!!
susie
**************
Good point. I didn't think of that when I was reading the article, but you're right. It may also have affected his ability to recall visual details.
Add in #4: Plane had landed from Colombia...
2. Passenger runs towards cockpit.
3. Passenger refuses to stop when commanded.
4. Plane had landed from Colombia.
How is that knee jerk again?
Come to think of it, "D", where do you get off defining conservatism for people on this site. Most people that do that have an ax to grind and an ox to gore. You sound like a liberaltarian, because skepticism of the government is about all liberals and libertarians ever talk about.
Like I said above, the shooting may well have been justified even if he never said he had a bomb, but there is no reason to blindly accept anything said by government employees, who may currently be in CYA mode.
Probably they saw a guy running crazily around with a bag, and decided to terminate the threat, since they didn't have any way to determine what was in the bag. Probably justified. We'll just have to wait and see.
I'll bet it goes all the way to the top - check and see if any of the corporate donations from Lowe's are traceable to these marshals.
Cheney at least LIHOPed this, if not planned it.
How about: "AAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEE!" as he falls down to the ground with him clutching what's left of a seat cushion.
"I told my wife last night that a panic-attack on our next plane flight was abosolutely out of the question."
Of course you realize telling her that jus makes it more likely..
| "A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb" Maybe he said "I have a bim." |
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"One hallmark of a conservative's perspective is a heightened skepticism of governmental justifications for killing an unarmed man"
Have you read the bulk of the comments here from "conservatives?" He got what he deserved. And those agents with their guns locked and loaded pointed at the passengers were only protecting them.
No, it was His Bum, His Bum, you know, his rear end. Maybe that's why he needed the balm, it was the cheap TP in the loo.
If he was on the phone talking to his brother, how could he hear the entire conversation between the disturbed man and his wife, and how could he hear anything else, including the word "bomb"?
This jerk is looking for his fifteen minutes, and he'll get it from Chrissy Matthews tonight.
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