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Post by Fnord Fred on Dec 8, 2005 19:24:47 GMT -4
I assume we've all heard about that crazy guy who was shot by an air marshall for screaming about having a bomb. A lot of people seem to think that the marshall should have thought things out a bit longer, in which case everyone would have probably been dead if it was a real bomb.
The only way I see for the marshalls to have kept this guy alive is if they were issued tasers or tranquilizer guns instead of/in addition to their service pistols. Thing is, tranqs can take a while to take effect, and it seems like the current from a taser might be enough to set off an explosive.
Anyone know much about either, and wherther or not there are any non-lethal solutions for this sort of thing?
On a side note: please don't turn this into a should he/shouldn't he thread. This is supposed to just be a discussion as to whether or not Air Marshalls could be equipped with non lethal weaponry without putting the flights at risk.
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 8, 2005 20:11:54 GMT -4
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Post by Fnord Fred on Dec 8, 2005 20:23:14 GMT -4
Hmm, I wouldn't want to start a thread there just for that...  If you don't mind, I'd be really grateful if you put the topic up. |
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Post by snakeriverrufus on Dec 8, 2005 21:32:54 GMT -4
My concern would be keeping the Marshall under cover with the addition of extraneous gear. the more gear they have to pack the harder it is to remain non-discript.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 8, 2005 23:25:41 GMT -4
I applaude their actions. Had it been the real thing, they would have saved lives. I do feel sorry for the guy's family, but the Marshalls did their job and did it correctly. There was no way that they could have known the threat wasn't real anymore than a Police Officer who has an unloaded gun or air pistol pointed at them can know the threat level. As to a non lethal option, I don't think there is one. Pepper spray would not stop a suicide bomber, nor would tear gas or trans. A tazer is likely to set off the explosives. Unless we delevlop an instant knock out tranq, they have to use lethal force to save lives.
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 9, 2005 0:09:34 GMT -4
I applaude their actions. Had it been the real thing, they would have saved lives. I do feel sorry for the guy's family, but the Marshalls did their job and did it correctly. There was no way that they could have known the threat wasn't real anymore than a Police Officer who has an unloaded gun or air pistol pointed at them can know the threat level. As to a non lethal option, I don't think there is one. Pepper spray would not stop a suicide bomber, nor would tear gas or trans. A tazer is likely to set off the explosives. Unless we delevlop an instant knock out tranq, they have to use lethal force to save lives. I'm not so sure they didn't over react 1] The only people saying the guy said he had a bomb are the Air Marshals. None of the passengers reported this [as of the last article I read]*. They are also the only people saying he didn't obey the order to freeze and put the bag down. 2] He was on the jetway not the plane when he was shot. 3] He had just run off the plane and his wife was shouting that he was bi-polar and hadn't taken his meds. - Running off a plane with a bag doesn't fit a terrorist scenario ------------------------------------------------------------------ *CNN said specificly that only the marshals said he said anything about a bomb, The NYT and Miami Herald only cite the marshals making this claim none of the other witnesses metioned anything about the guy saying he had a bomb. It's not uncomon for cops to make up excuses after a bad shooting just as most people would lie to escape prosecution. |
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Dec 9, 2005 8:11:52 GMT -4
Passenger John Mcalhany told The Associated Press on Thursday that Alpizar bumped into him as he ran off the aircraft, and he did not hear him say anything about a bomb. "The first time I heard the word bomb was when I was interviewed by the FBI," McAlhany said. "They kept asking if I heard him say the B-word. And I said, 'What is the B-word?' And they were like, 'Bomb.' I said no. They said, 'Are you sure?' And I am." "This was wrong," McAlhany added. "This man should be with his family for Christmas. Now he's dead." Mary Gardner, another passenger, also said Thursday she not hear Alpizar mention a bomb. news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051209/ap_on_re_us/airplane_shootingThe marshals say Alpizar announced he was carrying a bomb before being killed. However, no other witness has publicly concurred with that account. Only one passenger recalled Alpizar saying, "I've got to get off, I've got to get off," CNN's Kathleen Koch reported. ... Alpizar's wife, Anne Buechner, tried to help her husband. "She was just saying her husband was sick, her husband was sick," said passenger Alan Tirpak. When the woman returned, "she just kept saying the same thing over and over, and that's when we heard the shots." Tirpak said he didn't hear Alpizar say anything. Another passenger, Mary Gardner of Orlando, said she also overheard Buechner. "I heard her say, 'He's bipolar. He doesn't have his medicine,'" Gardner recalled. www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/08/airplane.gunshot/index.htmlAnother passenger interviewed in the video link provided (in the CNN article) said he didn't hear Alpizar saying anything on the plane. Of course the guy was acting bizarrely and his wife has yet to explain why he was going through a stressful situation with out taking his meds.
It's hard to say if the shooting was justified. The only witnesses to what happened on the jetway were the marshals and we don't even have their statements, only comments from their higher-ups. Their claims that he said he had a bomb in the cabin are almost certainly false. Hopefully a witness will turn up who saw what happened in the jetway.
I don't dispute that the marshals were in a difficult situation, however they are supposed to be trained to handle such incidents and distinguish threatening from non-threatening situations.
Their pervious experience might be significant, one was a border patrol agent and the other a customs inspector. I doubt that either of them (esp the customs inspector) had serious threat assessment training or experience from those jobs. Might marshals drawn from big city police deparments, the Secret Service etc been better prepared? |
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