December 8, 2005
Homeland insecurity
First small children, now the mentally ill. I feel safer already:
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 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.”
Which may explain this convoluted BS:
Before he ran off the plane he “uttered threatening words that included a sentence to the effect that he had a bomb,” said James E. Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshal Service field office in Miami.
Back to McAlhany:
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 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.”
No kidding. And nobody at Homeland Security seems to have asked themselves why a “terrorist” intending to blow up a plane would be trying to leave it—along with his “bomb”—before takeoff.
Still “bomb” and “bipolar” do sound very similar, and they’re definitely both “b-words.” If you’re a barely trained, trigger-happy air marshall, that’s probably reason enough to open fire. Although five rounds seems a little excessive.
Perhaps more training is in order.
Posted by Stephen at 6:53 PM in Terrorism | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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