Passenger shot and killed by Air Marshall in Miami

The real issue here, though I haven't been following all of this and don't know if anything official has come out about how mentally ill this guy was, but airlines should start asking people to report if they have had a history of mental illness. If somebody has a condition where they could flip out like that, it needs to be known. Even if 9/11 hadn't happened, this guy would have probably been shot had he been on a plane with an air marshall. It's also sad to see how little compassion people seem to have for the guy. All this "that's what you get talk" would make sense for somebody who was pefectly healthy upstairs, but it seems like this guy wasn't.

 

Marshalls are not psychiatrists who analyze this - they are there to protect people from threats. What if the guy was a terrorist who had second thoughts and spilled the beans? Then, as the marshalls were thinking to arrest him, he changed his mind and lost it and was going to blow himself up? There are thousands of possible scenarios. If the marshall tries to analyze all of these, there's a decent probability that if the guy IS a terrorist, everyone is dead already.

 

Unless, of course the situation turned out where hundreds of innocnet passengers lost their lives in the event he did have a bomb. Compassion for your life is lost when you threaten those of others.

 

I don't think the fact that he announced having a bomb, means he wasn't going to detinate it.

In fact that announcement could be the first stage to a hijacking which could lead to a 9/11 type attack. "I have a bomb. Do what I say and nobody gets hurt. Don't, and I will blow this plane up."

It all starts with announcing and making it known that you have a bomb.

I feel bad that a man without a bomb was killed. If there was a non-lethal way to instantly subdue someone I would be all for it. Under the circumstances what happened seemed a natural but sad conclusion.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/08/airplane.gunshot/index.html

Now a lot more have come into light. Let's recap:

1) According to witness accounts from the passengers, Mr. Rigoberto Alpizar became agitated even before he boarded the plane. Mrs. Alpizar tried to calm him down throughout the flight.

2) The verbal fight between Mr. and Mrs. Alpizar broke out after the plane was landed in Miami. There were air marshals on the plane. They had been supposedly monitoring the whole situation, and they elected not to take any action and let the situation escalated.

3) The claim by the side of air marshal that Mr. Alpizar was yelling he had a bomb in his bag while "he was running up and down the plane aisle" was disputed by at least two passengers.

4) Mrs. Alpizar kept telling others his husband was sick, bipolar to be exact, and didn't have the medicine. It was very audible to multiple passengers, but perhaps not so to the air marshals who were preoccupied with the imaginary uttering of *bomb*.

5) Mr. Alpizar was shot multiple times while he at the boarding bridge, where no passengers were reportedly present.

 

Yes it is sad and this to me is a tragic accident rather than an incidence of police brutality.

In my self-defense seminars we address the issue of compassion and morality. As civilized humans its difficult to kill someone or even commit grievous physical injury to them yet when faced with an potentially threat where your life and the lives of others you have to respond right away. Cops are trained rigorously to be able make a snap assessment and in general they are taught to not resort to force. Unfortunately there are just times when you have to put compassion aside and make an immediate decision. Its cold and yes mistakes are made but in that moment when it comes down to killing that person or possibly having the whole plane blown up an air marshall isn't going to hesitate to kill.


Yes its very sad that a mentally ill person who forgot to take there medications was on that plane at that time but the responsibility for this goes largely on this person and his family for him not taking his medications. A plane isn't like any other law enforcement situation and passengers have to take a large part of the responsibility for their own safety and the safety of the plane by not becoming a threat themselves or acting in away that gives the impression of a threat.

 

we already knew the plane had landed and he was at the bridge. those facts do change the situation.

 

From reading the article, this entire incident occurred while the plane was on the ground. It was never in flight.

"Alpizar, a U.S. citizen, had boarded American Airlines Flight 924 in Miami to fly to Orlando, Florida. The 44-year-old Maitland, Florida, resident had just connected from a flight from Ecuador."

Since this occurred in Miami and the article states that Mr. Alpizar boarded the flight in Miami AND the fact that Mrs. Alpizar received a phone call on the plane, it appears that Marshals were not able to monitor this situation as closely or for as long as you imply.

There is nothing in the article describing Mr. Alpizar's behavior from Ecuador to Miami.

 

911 changed everything, the way people think and act. Supposedly, if you are forced to change all those things or give up your rights, terrorrists win. But we all know it's impossible not to change at all. However, we really have to exam those changes, whether it's really beneficial, despite all the good intentions. There were lot more hijackers before, but there wasn't any armed Air Marshal. 911 changed that. Why there wasn't armed Air Marshal? Because one gun on each plane is more dangerous than low possibility of a hijacking attempt. We all know that if you put a bullet in the window, 30,000 feet high, the plane will crash. In other words, if the Marshal miss, or the bullet goes through a suspect, blows a hole on the plane, whether that is a havoc, nutcase, or real hijacking attempt; whether there is real bomb or intention to blow the plane off, the end result will be the same.

You possibly prevent one worst case scenario happening, but you also possibly turn many less dangerous scenarios into fatal catastrophes. In the past, how many false alarms were triggered comparing to real identified threats? How many havoc were created comparing to real warning? How many misunderstanding caused tention comparing to actual danger? How many hijackers because of political or economic motives to demand something instead of just suiside bombers? In the end, what if the Air Marshal with a gun is not mentally stable or under stress or just simply blackout? One gun shot might end all the lives onboard. If that happens (God forbiden), if any of us or our loved ones is onboard (God forbiden), will you still simply just shrug off, that it's regretful, but that's the nutcase's fault? Yes, it might well be his fault, but is that good enough for those potential lost lives (again, God forbidden) ?

If something doesn't happen to us, it's always too easy to say too bad, but maybe before such heavy non-reversable action is taken, people better exam all other options as well, and weigh them carefully. Sometimes, just a good motive is not good enough.

911 changed everything, but are those all good changes which make you really safer? Does Armed Air Marshal really make you safer?

 

Interesting stuff and let me respond to it from what I understand to be air marshall procedure.

Air marshalls will not act unless they suspect an eminent threat to the whole safety of the plane like a bomb or a takeover. Things like having a loud unruly passenger will not cause the air marshall to act because of the possibility it is a ruse to draw out the air marshall allowing another attacker to take them out. There is a reason why Air marshalls travel undercover so that an organized hijacking team can't identify them ahead of time.

The fact that the situation escalated appears to be more of a failure on the part of the flight attendants to deal with the situation. If the couple had been disrupting the flight as soon as they landed they should've had them removed ASAP. Also while in flight the crew are empowered to act as law enforcement and can have a disruptive passenger restrained. Unlike other situations too in flight its up to all passengers to look out for the safety of the plane other passengers should help try to calm down the person or if necessary help the crew restrian them.

In a stressful situation with lots of noise like a plane its often unclear who is saying what.

Very tragic but again if its the safety of the whole plane and if the air marshall believes this to be case they have to make the call whether claiming illness is a ruse or not. Further on a plane a deranged violent person could cause great harm if they were to break into the cockpit. Again you can't judge a flight like other law enforcement situations.

The boarding bridge is close enough to the plane that if a bomb was detonated it would set off the whole plane. If they were at the terminal then the explosion would also kill the people in the terminal.

 

The article implies this happened prior to take-off from Miami to Orlando. At least, that is my assumption based on the following:

"Alpizar, a U.S. citizen, had boarded American Airlines Flight 924 in Miami to fly to Orlando, Florida. The 44-year-old Maitland, Florida, resident had just connected from a flight from Ecuador."

 

The question now becomes whom do you believe, the air marshals or the passengers, who gave vastly different accounts on the "I have a bomb" claim by Mr. Alpizar.

Unfortunately we don't know what really happened at the boarding bridge where Mr. Alpizar was shot at this point.

 

You are right bobrek, I didn't read the section describing he's a good guy. I thought it was irrelevant.

 

We do know that these two items you listed are factually inaccurate:

"1) According to witness accounts from the passengers, Mr. Rigoberto Alpizar became agitated even before he boarded the plane. Mrs. Alpizar tried to calm him down throughout the flight.

2) The verbal fight between Mr. and Mrs. Alpizar broke out after the plane was landed in Miami. There were air marshals on the plane. They had been supposedly monitoring the whole situation, and they elected not to take any action and let the situation escalated."

With respect to #1, there was no flight to calm him down throughout since this occurred after boarding not after landing.

With respect to #2, the "verbal fight" would have occurred before take off as opposed to after landing.

Did you gather that information from witness accounts? If so, the witnesses are not to be trusted since they didn't know if they were coming or going.

If not from witness accounts, are you trying to spin the story differently than the way it actually occurred?

Again, there is no instance of a problem with Mr. Alpizar on the South America to Miami flight. the problem occurred while on the ground after boarding the Miami to Orlando flight.

 

Well I acknowledged I skipped reading the "good guy" section, which would have provided a more complete picture. The fact that two of my statements were not entirely accurate does not give a free pass to air marshal's claim that Mr. Alpizar yelled he had a bomb while he was on the plane. This is of course too convenient for you to ignore.

 

I have no idea if he said anything about a bomb or not. I wasn't there. The Marshalls claim they heard him say he had a bomb, a couple of passengers say they didn't hear anything. Shoot, I've been on planes where passengers didn't hear the pilot announce for folks not to congregate in the aisles during flights.

Based on what I have read/seen, it appears Mr. Alpizar went running down the aisle and out of the plane. At some point he indicated he had a bomb (perhaps once he was outside the plane and passenger earshot). He also appeared to have not complied with the Marshall's requests to stop running, to get down and whatever else they may have said. Not being intimately familiar with bi-polar disease, I have no idea if this affected his behavior or his ability to follow orders.

I do know it was a tragic situation. It appears there were preventative measures that Mrs. Alpizar chose not to take. If Mr. Alpizar was truly suffering from his bi-polar disfunction prior to him getting on the plane (as some reports indicate), she should have never have allowed it. It's hard to comment on that as well, because I have no knowledge as to how serious his condition was as well as how he has behaved in the past when he hasn't been medicated.

Based on everything I have heard it seems the marshalls at that time had no other choice than to follow their training. Monday morning quarterbacking sure is easy, isn't it?

 

Well this is after the fact now that we know he's no threat, I'm just saying it's sad how people are blaming the guy for his actions when he had no control over them. It's like you guys refuse to accept that he was mentally ill and believe that he chose to go nuts. I'm not questioning the air marshalls, this guy gave cause, but it wasn't his fault. There is fault for whoever was supposed to be responsible for his medication though, and that belongs to him and possibly his wife.

 

I can't for the life of me fathom what is going through the people's minds here who say that the air marshall is in the wrong. Here are the simple facts...

1. A passenger on a plane claimed he had a bomb while acting erratic and running all over the place.

2. An air marshall confronted the man and ordered him to put down the bag, the man fled.

3. The air marshall persued and once again ordered the man to put down the bag.

4. The man reached into his bag

5. The air marshall shot him.

Now, if you read above the air marshall gave MORE then enough time for this man to comply, but he didn't... so he is still in the wrong? Look, we live in a different world then we did 5 years ago and if you can't see that then the world you live in is a false one. The main reason we are struggling with the war in Iraq is the same reason this has turned into a "debate and discussion" thread rather then a news and reaction thread. EVERYTIME one of our soldiers, officers, agents uses deadly force to protect innocent lives they have to be put under a microscope and account for every bullet fired... even in a time of war.

If a shot is fired in Iraq the news and utopians are all over it, and claiming that our heroes are actually terrorizing. I'm glad you guys aren't in points of power, because I certainly wouldn't want you protecting my family. Look, it is a sad situation that happens but it was only the fault of the man who didn't take his medicine. There are plenty of witnesses stating that he was yelling bomb and didn't listen to the Marshalls, and his wife may very well have been yelling for them to stop but there is no room for error. Criminals and terrorists use diversions all the time to get to their end goal and they have to look at it from that perspective.

It is sad that a man was killed for his ignorant actions, but it is just as sad that the American people are questioning a man who did his job exactly as he was supposed to to help protect innocent lives.

 

He had no control over his actions? Here's a thought, how about taking your MEDICINE! AND he had his freaking wife with him. Or better yet, let the airline know that he has a history of mental illness and he hasn't taken his medicine and may act out. To say he or his wife were not at fault is simply ridiculous. This also could have very easily been a "suicide by cop" but there is really no way of knowing that.