Mentally Ill Man claiming to be carrying a bomb is shot by US Air Marshal

[BFG]

A passenger who claimed to have a bomb on board an American Airlines plane in Miami was shot dead by a US federal officer, government officials say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4508432.stm

Is this the shocking state of things to come?

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

Well,

I wouldnt say shocking really.
Poor guy was SUPER bi-polar, and refusing to take his meds.
I feel horrible for his poor wife.

He had stormed down the aisle toward the cockpit claiming to have a bomb.
When asked to drop to the floor, refused, reached into his bag and was shot dead.

Thats what happens when you claim you have a bomb on flights now, and
as unfortunate as it was...Im relieved that marshalls are aboard now.

[beefyfigure]

Indeed he is mentally ill. What asshole "claims" to carry a bomb on a plane these days? I say: Good riddance—let this serve as an example to all other nutjobs contemplating this kind of sick move.

[BFG]

Erm... Do you think he was mentally ill for a joke? which bit of "he was mentally ill" passed you by? yes im sure he spent weeks carfully planning this little stunt. Are you F*cking kidding me?

Good riddance? Where the hell did you come from?

[Civrock]

I saw it on the news a few minutes ago, live. How should the officer have known that he's mentally ill? How should he have known if it's not a real threat and a real bomb? That guy yelled around that he had a bomb, ran to his bag and reached for something in it... what would you have done? Waited for him to detonate the bomb maybe (if it were one)? These guys can't and mustn't be careful enough these days, and he had to do something. It's not really his fault, it's his job. I'm not saying it's good what he did... but neither that it's wrong. What do you expect?

[beefyfigure]

He was taken out of his misery. Does being mentally ill justify a terrorist act? After all, the guy's intention was to kill other innocent people.

Well, if you must know, I came from my mother's womb.

[BFG]

Civic ive never said they shouldn't have shot him because he was mentally ill, i never said they should have known he was mentally ill, i never suggested they should have waited.... i never

bollocks to that basically not being funny but your post is totally irrelevant to what i said.

This is what i was objecting to:

Indeed he is mentally ill. What asshole "claims" to carry a bomb on a plane these days? I say: Good riddance—let this serve as an example to all other nutjobs contemplating this kind of sick move.

Did i just say that Being mentally ill justified a terrorist act? No it seems the guys intention wasn't to kill other people going by the fact apparently he was totally unarmed and there doesn't seem to have been any kind of explosive device found (yet).

["Sixhits"]

It's a shame they killed him, but the Air Marshals did their job.

[beefyfigure]

[...]your post is totally irrelevant to what i said.

That's funny—I was thinking the exact same thing about your message.

Take the muck from your eyes and the shit from your ears, BFG: It could've been a lot worse.

[Brutha]

Hold it, you're actually standing by your "good riddance" and "put out of his misery" statement? What the hell are you? This was a person, not an animal! Sure, I can see that the air marshals did what they were supposed to do, but that does not mean "good riddance". Where do these feelings of yours come from? A mentally ill person didn't take his pills, and now he is dead because of that. It's a tragedy, not a joking matter.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

Well...

Actually, hes not dead becuase he didnt take his pills.
Hes dead becuase he ran around the plane screaming that he had a bomb.
He was running around screaming BOMB for reasons OTHER than his lack of medication...
I Know several severly bippolar people, and would venture to say that none of them would run around screaming 'Bomb" on a plane...meds or no meds....rock bottom or not.
And if they DID, they would KNOW what they were doing, and would be doing it for a reason.
They too, would deserve to be terminated.

Im not for shooting the mentally Ill indiscriminately,
but for FUCKING sure, Im for shooting people who are screaming BOMB.,,,on a plane.
And as callous as this sounds, i have to sort of agree with the 'good riddence' view.
Im tired of being at the mercy of terroristic threats all the godamn time (or crazy people who threaten or carry out such acts)...i dont CARE how mentally ill someone is...Terminate with PREJUDICE..i say.

Mental illness (in this country at least) is far too widely relied upon defence. I am 100% againt that in cases of violent acts. The public has a right to protection from Violence AND the 'insanity defense'.
Its crazy people who end up DETONATING bombs on planes in the first place.

Its merely fate that he didnt actually have one..or a suicide wish
(Suicide By Cop is WIDESPREAD in the states)
so perhaps he accomplished what he wanted.
but yes, absolutely a tragedy....especailly for his wife...
who knew he was off his meds in the first place.

(serious question: if she knew he was THAT unstable, and knew he was off the meds, does she hold any responsibility in this?)

**edit**
After looking for this story all over the net..Im struck by the LACK of witnesses who say they HEARD or SAW him indicate that he had a bomb. There are witnesses howevver, quoted that he was frantic, and flailing his arms, and he he bolted off the plane. If he had made those threats, and witnesses heard them, I would venture that we would find direct statements to that effect already. Since there are NONE..im forced to consider the possibility that the claims about HIS Threats are coming ONLY from the AirMarshalls..meaning that i have been manipulated, heavily. My post above is perfect proof of the utter efectiveness of blanketing this thing with 'Terror Fear" I was convinced without evidence..becuase of how it was reported...And i am ILL over my prior opinion...completely Ill. forgive me.

THAT troubles me Immensely..and could possibly reverses my sentiments about his death. In that case, you WOULd have the shooting of a sick man, and a prefabricated (cover-our-asses) story, to justify his shooting, which I ABSOLUTELY grant, is sick and wrong. If the man simply panicked (whcih i can actually see, being off meds) and he simply bolted from the plane in a panic attack (which threatens NO ONE) to be shot down on the tarmac, then we have a massive, and further travesty. And i would fully retract and regret the way i summarized my feelings toward the shooting. I would have then fallen to the convenient, yet FAKE 'Terror threat' excuse, which is coming to justify a LOT of these overkill responses...and prevent us from saying.."Now why did you have to go and Kill that poor scared sick guy?"....just saying 'he claimed to have a bomb' put me in an entirely supportive position. Now im not so sure...Did he really claim that? or are we being mislead to believe that? I'll likely never know.
Like the Shooting on the Bus in Britain of Carlos Menenzes...whom it was found NOt to have been wearing a heavy coat in summer, and carried NO weapon, and did NOT rush the platform as was initially claimed but was summarily executed by headshots upon reaching the bus. its all FUCKING SICK.

[jerkasaur]

The fact that you all (most of you at least) think that killing someone for the reasons that this man was killed, is not just perfectly acceptable, but encouraged is ABSOLUTELY FUCKED UP. Sheix, I really hope for your sake you are being completely sarcastic. Where is the compassion for your fellow man? Since when is it ok to kill metally ill people for not knowing what the fuck they are doing (aka, being metally ill)?

You may say that in todays heightened state of alert, this type of caution, and thus this type of action is necessary, but you are absolutely wrong. This is how the oppression we claim to be fighting abroad starts at home. One day it's a mentally ill man (who, lets not forget, isn't white), and a month latter, it's some kid you knew who used to live down then street, and then it's your fucking family.

"It's the crazy people who end up DETONATING bombs on planes in the first place"

This is probably one of the most grevious errors in American thinking about terrorism. Crazy people dont build and detonate bombs. Driven, determined, ideologically motivated people (the people who you would never assume were crazy by looking at them) WITH TECHNICAL KNOWLAGE are the people who build and try and detonate bombs on planes. The guy mumbling about blowing shit up isn't going to do shit to you. WHY? Because he doesn't have the mental capacity to do shit, and because the bomb is never gonna get a chance to go off if he keeps blabbering about it. The people who spend hundreds of hours designing, building, and fitting bombs into their fucking shoes arn't going to be mubbling shit when they get on the plane, because they have the opportunity to actually do shit

"Mental illness (in this country at least) is far too widely relied upon defence. I am 100% againt that in cases of violent acts. The public has a right to protection from Violence AND the 'insanity defense'."

And innocent people have to right to say whatever the fuck they want and not get shot 3 times by undercover airmarshals.

"I Know several severly bippolar people, and would venture to say that none of them would run around screaming 'Bomb" on a plane...meds or no meds....rock bottom or not."

And I'm sure that as a clinical pscyologist, you are in the unique possition to tell all of us what kind of behavior every single bipolar person on this planet exibits when they are off their meds. If his wife is screaming that he's bipolar as he's getting shot, somehow I don't think that that quite fits into a bogus insanity defence. I'm got a better idea - the undercover airmarshals, saw a non-white guy, kinda suspicious looking (remember, being non white in America is a euphmism for suspicious) and ::possibly:: overheard him mubble somthing about a bomb. The confront him, he's mentally ill and he freaks out, starts running because he doesn't know what the fuck is going on. They shoot and kill him and you all accept that as legitimate? THATS THE FUCKING METAL ILLNESS.

Oh, and great idea, we can hold the wife responsible. Maybe we can send her the bill for the fucking bullets.

You all piss me off.

EDIT - Good edit Sheix, you have restored my faith that there are some reasonable people out there with the ability to look beyond the headlines and the government statements.

[BFG]

Take the muck from your eyes and the shit from your ears, BFG: It could've been a lot worse.

No shit sherlock congratulations on that marvalous piece of investagative work: 'it could've been a lot worse'

Hold on while i take the "muck from my eyes and shit from my ears" though, becuase surly i didn't just read your reaction and attitude towards mentally ill people? Surely not. There was i making comparisons with your statments to ethnic cleansing and 'pure race' blue eyes and blond hair....  But now my eyes and ears are clear thankyou so much. I now see the true way we should treat people who are mentally ill. We need to put them out of their misery! Hey shooting them is a bit expensive, why don't you gas them?

I have to stop before i go any further you sure as hell have got my blood boiling. So lets  rewind back to the start again before i loose my freaking patience and start flaming which im desperately trying not to do. Lone GS or Cookie for Christs sake grab me and say stop if you think im crossing the line.


I asked wheather this is the shocking state of things to come. This has been the first shooting by Air Marshals in the US. As Shiex pointed out we have had the same tradegy in the UK. A horrific failure of intelligece and in a state of extreame security caution the day after the london tube bombings, an innocent man we shot and killed by armed police.

That was my question. Nothing more nothing less. Your responce was "Good riddance and He was taken out of his misery [...] "

Now im sorry but alas due to my nature of not being a small minded insensitive idiot i rather object to such views of people with Mental illness, and the lack of empathy for the situation.

Is that really your view of people with mental illness's? Please enlighten me as to what you define as a mental illness and where you would draw the line at who should and shouldn't be "taken out of their missery"   - Someone with OCD or  schizophrenia perhaps?  Maybe someone suffering from Depression or Anorexia instead? Or should we be putting those bastards with Autism or Aspergers out of their suffering instead?

I mean for gods sake could you actually think about what you are saying before making such outragous and disgusting comments?

We don't know exactly what has happend yet. We probably won't for a long time if ever really know exactly what happend. What we do know is  this.

An innocent mentally ill man has been shot and killed in tragic circumstances.
Two Air Marshalls have gone home knowing that they have just shot and killed an innocent man.
A woman went home with her husband in a body bag.


- By they way I can't help but ask but isn't there some kinda security regarding internal flights - i mean this guys bag would have been checked woulnd't it... ?

EDIT - Good edit Sheix,

Damn right it was Now i don't have to start another post frying your nuts over a hot flame Shiex

[Croosch]

He was taken out of his misery. Does being mentally ill justify a terrorist act? After all, the guy's intention was to kill other innocent people.

Well, if you must know, I came from my mother's womb.

considering he didn't actually have a bomb he wasn't killing any innocent people.

[Ethion]

Soon we can't even have clothes on, or have ANY handbagage on the plane.

[BFG]

Yesterday's drama unfolded before the flight began. All 114 passengers had boarded American Flight 924, scheduled to leave Miami for Orlando, yesterday afternoon when Alpizar, a Florida resident traveling with his wife, said he had a bomb in his carry-on bag, federal officials said. Alpizar had arrived in Miami from Quito, Ecuador, earlier that day and had stopped in Miami to board the second leg of his trip to Orlando, federal officials said.

Several witnesses said they saw Alpizar run from his seat near the back of the plane to the front toward the cockpit, where air marshals confronted him. Passenger Mary Gardner, who said she was aboard the flight, said she saw the man identified as Alpizar run up the aisle, and he appeared to be panicked, she told WTVJ-TV in Miami. As he ran, his wife screamed "My husband! My husband!" and said that her husband was bipolar and had not taken medicine, Gardner told the television station.

So it seems from the accounts im reading the following happend...

This was before the plan had taken off and was still stationary. Alpizars wife shouted out that he was biPolar and hadn't taken his medication as he ran down the plane. He had his bag with him... he was shot as he tried to leave the plane with his bag .. he was shot while trying to take the bag which supposidly had the bomb off the plane

 

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Yesterday's drama unfolded before the flight began. All 114 passengers had boarded American Flight 924, scheduled to leave Miami for Orlando, yesterday afternoon when Alpizar, a Florida resident traveling with his wife, said he had a bomb in his carry-on bag, federal officials said. Alpizar had arrived in Miami from Quito, Ecuador, earlier that day and had stopped in Miami to board the second leg of his trip to Orlando, federal officials said.

Several witnesses said they saw Alpizar run from his seat near the back of the plane to the front toward the cockpit, where air marshals confronted him. Passenger Mary Gardner, who said she was aboard the flight, said she saw the man identified as Alpizar run up the aisle, and he appeared to be panicked, she told WTVJ-TV in Miami. As he ran, his wife screamed "My husband! My husband!" and said that her husband was bipolar and had not taken medicine, Gardner told the television station.

So it seems from the accounts im reading the following happend...

This was before the plan had taken off and was still stationary. Alpizars wife shouted out that he was biPolar and hadn't taken his medication as he ran down the plane. He had his bag with him... he was shot as he tried to leave the plane with his bag .. he was shot while trying to take the bag which supposidly had the bomb off the plane

Yeah, and if he had actually had a bomb, and detonated it right outside of the airplane, he could have still killed people!  The Air Marshall did exactly what he was supposed to do and should be PRAISED for his actions!  Mentally ill or not, you say you have a bomb anywhere near an airport these days and you are gonna get shot.  Period.  End of discussion.

[BFG]

Im not denying that the Airmarshals were doing their job. I might be questioning the job of the AirMarshals though. definatly different - and yes very true, a bomb outside the plane could jsut have well killed many people as being inside the plan... not as many though i would imagine.

Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, said Alpizar had run up and down the plane's aisle yelling, "I have a bomb in my bag."

however....

"She was chasing after him," said fellow passenger Alan Tirpak. "She was just saying her husband was sick, her husband was sick." When the woman returned, "she just kept saying the same thing over and over, and that's when we heard the shots."

Another passenger, said she also overheard Alpizar's wife. "I heard her say, 'he's bipolar, he doesn't have his medicine.'"

Ellen Sutliff, who said she sat near Alpizar, described him as agitated, even before he boarded the plane. His wife kept coaxing him, "We just have to get through customs. Please, please help me get through this," according to Sutliff.
"We're going to be home soon, and everything will be all right," Sutliff quoted the wife as saying.

Tirpak said he didn't hear Alpizar say anything.

If a guy is running up an down the isle yelling "i have a bomb in my bag" i think id remember it.

[DarK.]

It's a shame they killed him, but the Air Marshals did their job.

Righto.  Its a shame they had to kill him, but honestly I know I am going to feel safer flying to Cali next month knowing that airmarshals are still around.[/size]

[BFG]

Righto.  Its a shame they had to kill him, but honestly I know I am going to feel safer flying to Cali next month knowing that airmarshals are still around.

Well mate. I bloody hope for your sake that one of the other passengers doesn't miss hear something you say to sound like 'carrying a bomb' or something.