Not necessarily. There have been many, many studies comparing what witnesses heard and/or saw during a fast-moving event. It is proven fact that some people will see or hear things others simply do not. It does not necessarily follow that because Alpizar "yelled" the word bomb that everyone on the plane "must" have heard it. Heck, there are times I don't hear what my wife is saying when she is sitting right across the table because my mind is elsewhere.
But Alpizar had already left the plane and was no risk to the other passengers.
Wrong again. There are "passengers" still in the terminal or even in the gangway. The door of the plane was obviously open, likely indicating not all passengers had boarded and some may have been coming down the gangway. Second, a bomb with a sufficiently large blast radius (easily carried by one person) could cause an explosion of jet fuel or other combustibles in or around the plane itself. He cold have had a remote control to detonate a bomb still on the plane. So to say that he was no threat simply because he was not physically on the plane is nonsense.
Posters have said it was reasonable for the marshals to assume that Alpizar's getting up and running off the plane and his wife following him saying "He's sick" was all part of a terrorist plot...as if a real bomber would get OFF the plane with his bomb, or draw attention to himself, or have his wife follow and draw more attention.
It's called distraction from the real threat. It could also be a "dry run" to force Air Marshals to reveal their identity and/or test their reactions. Prior to 9/11, the hijackers deliberately took various types of prohibited items onto aircraft - even though they had no intention of hijacking those particular flights - in order to test security and see what would pass.
Alpizar has no history of making threats.
Neither did any of the 9/11 hijackers.
He was returning from volunteer missionary work. The only reports that he made a bomb threat comes from officials. The word "bomb" in connection with airports and airlines is "magic," it authorizes any official action, just as the statement, "I thought he had a gun," justifies a police shooting of an unarmed man. From the information available, I believe that Alpizar did not make a bomb threat.
This is about more than what he said. Even assuming for the sake of argument he didn't yell he had a bomb, he ran from Air Marshals when ordered to stop, and reached into his pack. He could have been reaching for a weapon or reaching for a remote control that would have blown up a bomb still in or around the plane. He acted in a threatening manner - regardless of whether or not he "made a bomb threat" - and the Air Marshals were justified in stopping him via deadly force.
[N]o passenger interviewed by the media has confirmed the air marshal story.
No, the media has only reported the statements of those who contradict the Air Marshal's story. It doesn't follow that he did not say it. As proven earlier, it is not necessarily the case that ALL the passengers MUST have heard Aplizar if he was "yelling."
Frankly, I'd be more prone to trusting the word of the Air Marshals, who are trained to be observant to the things around them and to be watching and listening for threats, than the word of some sleepy-eyed passenger who's staring out the window and worried about getting their luggage back.
When did it become part of the philosophy of the Right to automatically justify the shooting of an unarmed citizen by Federal officials?
It's the philosophy of any rational, reasonable person to justify shooting an individual who is acting in a threatening manner in a situation where increased security is expected. Walk into a bank with a water pistol in your pocket and you're going to attract a bit of attention. Maybe you do or don't yell, "I'm robbing the bank," but you reach toward the water pistol. You'd get shot in a hurry.
This feels more and more like the Iraq/WMD thing to me. Focus on one thing you feel cannot be proven to be true (in this case the Marshalls apparently said they heard him say he had a bomb, but so far no passengers have said they heard it that we know of) and run with it. Distract the public from the real facts (he was acting in a manner that suggested he might be a danger, refused to follow orders and got shot dead because of it) so the *man* can be held up as the villan.
At least that's how I'm starting to percieve this.
susie
This feels more and more like the Iraq/WMD thing to me. Focus on one thing you feel cannot be proven to be true (in this case the Marshalls apparently said they heard him say he had a bomb, but so far no passengers have said they heard it that we know of) and run with it. Distract the public from the real facts (he was acting in a manner that suggested he might be a danger, refused to follow orders and got shot dead because of it) so the *man* can be held up as the villan.
At least that's how I'm starting to percieve this.
susie