Federal officials said the air marshals involved in Wednesday's shooting followed procedure.
BY JAY WEAVER, INA PAIVA CORDLE AND CARA BUCKLEY
jweaver@herald.com
U.S. officials strongly defended Wednesday's fatal shooting of an agitated passenger by air marshals -- believed to be the first such case in agency history -- saying the man presented a serious threat to the American Airlines flight he had just boarded.
Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, of Maitland, was gunned down after claiming he had a bomb in a carry-on bag and refusing to obey two air marshals' order to surrender, officials said.
''Their training showed they made the right decision, though there turned out to be no bomb in the bag,'' said Brian Doyle, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the air marshal's service. ``They had a split second to make that decision.''
James E. Bauer, special agent in charge of the air marshals' Miami field office, said the marshals' reaction to the perceived threat was by the book.
''They were justified in their shooting because of the threat posed by this man,'' Bauer said.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13355194.htm
Neal Boortz wrote:Let the recriminations begin! Unless you just woke up from a 24-hour nap, you've no doubt heard about what went on down in Miami yesterday with American Airlines flight 924.
The plane was on a stopover from Colombia to Orlando. It was during that time that 44-year-old U.S. citizen Rigoberto Alpizar decided to board an airplane and announce he had a bomb. After that, he disobeyed a direct order from two air marshals to stop and lay down. Then he appeared to reach into his backpack which marked the official end of the line and the beginning of the eternal celestial dirt nap for Rigoberto Alpizar.
The air marshals did what they were trained to do. They did what they were supposed to do. They did what they had to do. They shot him. DRT.
A search afterward revealed no bomb. His wife was shouting that he was mentally ill and off his medication...too bad. It is a tragedy for his family, but we live in times where airline security has to be absolute.
If you have a family member suffering from mental problems, make damned sure they're on their medications if you're going to put them on a commercial airplane. This "he's not taking his medications" thing was just a bit late. The airplane he was on can hold 180 passengers. It is the responsibility of air marshals to get those people where they are going safely. When you have someone who says they have a bomb, the threat has to be neutralized, and it was. These marshals didn't have the time to administer an ink blot test to Alpizar. They didn't have the time to call in a grief counselor from the nearest government school.
They had to act. They had reason to believe that Alpizar had a bomb. He told them he had a bomb. At that point they acted just the way any rational person would expect and demand that they act. They neutralized the threat. Remember...on 9/11, the passengers of the hijacked planes were scared not of the box cutters that the Islamic hijackers used, but of their threat of having a bomb. There was no bomb then either, yet 3,000 people died anyway.
And so Rigoberto Alpizar is dead. In retrospect that's sad. But there is nobody to blame for this except Alpizar, for not taking his meds, and his wife, for not making sure he did. Already, though, we have the condescending, sneering questions from the media. Since no bomb was found, they're insinuating that the shooting wasn't justified. He was bipolar, we're told, and wasn't responsible for his actions. Wrong on all counts. The lives of the people on board that plane are more important than the personal problems of any one passenger.
One particularly insipid remark I'm hearing is "why didn't they Taser him?" Taser? You have a man with a suspected bomb, and he's reaching into his backpack to presumably detonate that bomb, and you want to shock him? You think that he wouldn't have time to pull that detonation trigger if you stick electric needles into his leg? Come on, folks. Grow up here!
So they took him out. One Democratic congressman put it best yesterday. Ed Markey, who is on the Homeland Security Committee, praised the actions of the air marshal: "Air marshals put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. Thanks to the efforts of an alert air marshal, an individual was prevented from causing a potentially dangerous situation on the American Airlines flight that could have harmed passengers and crew members." Ed Markey gets it right.
Sorry but yeah they did what they had to do. I feel for the family but frankly if your gonna haul some mongoloid onto the plane that is more unstable than plutonium make sure the monkey has his meds m'kay?
But yeah, they made the right decision in shooting him.
