Witnesses heard no talk of bomb

Orlando Sentinel ^ | December 9 | Mark Schlueb Sentinel Staff Writer

[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.

[Cboldt]

Nobody has made that claim except the feds, and for the record they have changed their story once so far.

There have been a number of differnces between "official accounts," including an early account that had the guy arriving from Columbia and acting up at the normal deplaning time of that flight.

Some of the official reports have the guy YELLING a bomb threat, but all of the official reports have him uttering a bomb threat.

What specific "change" in story did you have in mind?

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

But it's okay for you to, right? Because these people are saying what you agree with, right?

LOL! No, not at all.

I just thought it was humorous that you wrote to me that I should not take the words of someone anxious to get on TV, then you turn around and quote the words of someone you saw on TV.

That's all.

The only reason I even mentioned any of these people was because of the stark contradiction between what they said happened and what the FAM spokesman said happened.

In a way, the FAM spokesman's statement itself proves that what he said happened, couldn't have happened.

He said that Alpizar was 'running up and down the aisle yelling he had a bomb in his bag.' But later, we find out that an FAM was in first-class and another was in coach.

If Alpizar had been running up and down the aisle, then he would not have blocked from exiting by the agent in first class (in front of him) and would have been caught from behind by the agent in coach.

Since both ran off the airplane after Alpizar did, then the only thing Alpizar could have done was run up the aisle once and off the airplane because both FAMs were behind him.

Make sense?

Well, that is if the FAMs aren't in the habit of standing idley by while someone is running up and down the aisle yelling he has a bomb in his bag and only give chase once the yeller runs off the airplane.

Since this obviously isn't the case, then the spokesman's statement proves itself to be wrong or misleading.

In a way, this reminds me of the episode a while back where one of Bush's SS team was trying to get on an AA flight right after 9/11 and made a big stink because the captain of the flight wouldn't let him on board. The captain's story was that the agent had filled out his CCW paperwork incorrectly and the captain wasn't going to take a chance.

The SS agent claimed that AA was discriminating against him because he was of arab descent. Even Bush spoke out against it. Then when the truth came out, the WH quietly dropped whole matter.

At this point, all we're doing is speculating. Along with others, I think that I'll wait until all the facts come out (if they come out) before commenting further.