Posted on 12/09/2005 12:28:29 PM PST by MRMEAN
..., it became increasingly apparent that the Maitland man killed by federal air marshals may have been fleeing in panic as he suffered the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
--SNIP--
A Miami-Dade police spokeswoman said Thursday that multiple witnesses reported that the 44-year-old was yelling that he had a bomb as he made his way down the aisle with a backpack slung across his chest. Later, the agency's chief of investigations insisted that Alpizar was yelling about a bomb but declined to say whether he was on the plane at the time.
Seven passengers interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel -- seated in both the front and rear of the main passenger cabin -- said Alpizar was silent as he ran past them on his way to the exit. One thought he had taken the wrong flight. Another thought he was going to throw up.
"I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane. He never called out he had a bomb," said Orlando architect Jorge A. Borrelli, who helped comfort Alpizar's wife after the gunfire. "He never said a word from the point he passed me at Row 9. . . . He did not say a word to anybody."
Two teens seated in Row 26 agreed. So did Jorge Figueroa, a power-plant operator from Lakeland seated a few rows behind first class.
"He wasn't saying anything; he was just running," Figueroa said. "I said to myself, 'It is probably a person who took the wrong plane.' "
What Alpizar's fellow passengers did hear were the desperate explanations from Buechner, Alpizar's wife, who at first seemed embarrassed by her husband's hasty exit. She started to follow him off the plane, saying, "He's sick. He needs to get off the plane," witnesses said.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
no shirrrr
I am a gull, not a buoy. :-)
I don't think so.
I don't think how dangerous it can seem that he left the plane so agitated. The airlines have a safety policy of not putting any luggage on the plane from a passenger who isn't on the flight. Its not just the bags he brought with him but the bags that he could have checked.
I would bet that certain profiles of behavior have been looked at with varying degrees of risk and protocols established. Common sense would dictate that the fact a man has disembarked in a hurry after boarding a plane, has refused to be detained when questioned and reached for a hidden object must have placed this man in the highest risk possible.
My deepest and most humble apologies (doffs imaginary hat in a sweeping South Carolinian manner)
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines"
They are certainly critics, but in this case, I think more for the shock value than as a matter of knocking the current administration.
The problem with that, IMO, is that a terrorist could presumably act in a similar way.
Both the media and the administration share the problem of promising or demanding perfection, absence of error that results in innocent loss of life. Security in a public setting is particularly difficult, becuase people prefer to think they aren't being managed that closely. Face it, mitigation of terrorist threat, or just plain "bully threat" even if not part of organized terrorism, has a price. There are many factors to balance out in that calculus, but no matter where the balance is struck, innocent people will be killed - either by bad guys, or by friendly fire.
In the current paradigm, all you or I have to do is follow orders, and those in charge will minimize casualties.
... the Marshal made a split-second decision that--to be honest--I'm perfectly okay with.
I'm ambivalent. I was ambivalent with the guy in London too. At the same time, I am pretty sure there will be no watering down of security, and no admission of error.
I made the exact same point in another thread.
Now, I would like to hear or see the witness statements of those that were on the skyway or boarding ramp leading to the aircraft. I haven't been able to find any reports of those that were in that area. That would be key in determining what actually happened. Regardless of what is said about witnesses, they are still for the most part impartial and critical to an investigation.
The marshals' job isn't to prevent contraband items from getting through security.
In other words, if a person successfully gets a bomb onto a plane, and blows it up on the ground, no reasonable person will blame the marshals.
Not on the point of airport security, but the public doesn't tend to second guess all friendly fire or mistaken ID, or other incidents where a person who meant no harm was killed by law enforcement. It happens, it will always happen. Rarely is the error egregious to the degree that the government has culpability, e.g., Randy Weaver. Even the Branch Davidian incident in Waco is officially justified.
The short answer is that if you don't want to die at the hands of law enforcement, then submit to orders. To do otherwise is escalation and carries a risk of deadly force.
I think none of this guy's testimony is reliable. The testimony seems to be geared toward the sensational. His 15 minutes are up. He is a "non-witness" at this point.
Why, because we don't agree with your assessment? Tinfoil? Give me a break, please.
I am not babbling - disobeying an air marshall, and getting shot for it, is justifed so long as the underlying act of "disobeyance" is over an issue rising to the level warranting it (like a bomb threat).
its like the threads about the police taser'ing people over traffic infractions - that's insanity, the underlying crime of a traffic citation does not justify escalation to tasering a person.
LOL!
First, the passenger accounts I posted weren't close enough to first class. Now, none are close enough to the back of the airplane.
BTW, do you the name(s) of the first-class passenger(s) you claimed said they heard Alpizar say he had a bomb? Source? (Please don't tell me you saw this on TV)
Passenger shot by air marshall:
...The flight, a Boeing 757, arrived from Medellin, at 12:16 p.m. The flight was due to leave for Orlando at 2:18 p.m."
FWIW, on a 757, row 26 is in the middle of the coach section. (See: AA 757 seating chart)
Do we know what was his seat assignment?
More unreliable eyewitness reports that saw him run up the aisle toward the exit, but didn't hear him 'yelling he had a bomb as he ran up and down the aisle'. ("Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, said Alpizar had run up and down the plane's aisle yelling, "I have a bomb in my bag." --It's funny how the only reliable eyewitnesses are the air marshalls, isn't it?)
White House backs air marshals' actions
..."She was just saying her husband was sick, her husband was sick," said passenger Alan Tirpak. When the woman returned, "she just kept saying the same thing over and over, and that's when we heard the shots."
...Tirpak said he didn't hear Alpizar say anything.
...Another passenger, Mary Gardner of Orlando, said she also overheard Buechner. "I heard her say, 'He's bipolar. He doesn't have his medicine,'" Gardner recalled.
...Gardner said that the couple had quarreled before the shooting.
...Ellen Sutliff, who said she sat near Alpizar on the flight into Miami from Quito, Ecuador, described him as agitated even then. His wife kept coaxing him, saying, " 'We just have to get through customs. Please, please help me get through this,' " according to Sutliff.
..." 'We're going to be home soon, and everything will be all right,' " Sutliff quoted the wife as saying.
...Passenger Mike Beshears recalled Alpizar running off the plane clutching a bag, chased by a man in a Hawaiian shirt.
...That man turned out to be one of the two air marshals.
...Like Tirpak, Beshears said he did not hear Alpizar say anything. "He just was in a hurry and exited the plane," he said.
...After Alpizar ran off the plane, his wife pursued him part of the way down the aisle, then returned to her seat saying her husband was sick and she needed to get his bags, Beshears said.
They still can ONLY say what THEY heard, not what actually happened; and unless they were running with him, they cannot know everything he said or did.
And, yes, I did hear them on TV AS THE EVENT WAS HAPPENING Wednesday; I guess I should just ignore people's spontaneous recollection of what just happened to them 30 minutes before.
BTW, one of the guys you're quoting had to admit on Fox Thursday morning that while he was on the plane he could in no way see or hear what was going on because of where he was sitting?
These days, Air Marshals are required to carry Tarot cards or some other divining tool in order to figure out if a passenger claiming to have a bomb actually has one. Failing that, they must gently ask the passenger to fill out a 3 page questionnaire and consult with a sensitivity specialist to make sure no one's feelings are hurt.
Or, just maybe, if someone has mental problems, the family can properly care for him and make sure he doesn't run down the aisles of airplanes screaming about bombs.
And by the way, the first paragraph was sarcasm, in case someone thinks I was serious.
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