A long story on the Miami shooting can be found here, and basically, the Marshals are defending their actions and are on paid leave while the obligatoty investigation is conducted. However, nestled in the story is this quote, which just knocked me on my arse:
The incident at the airport was the first time a passenger has been shot by air marshals since the enforcement program was beefed up after the September 11, 2001, hijacked airline attacks.
“This incident demonstrates the critical role that air marshals play in aviation security today,” said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.
This incident demonstrates the critical role that air marshals play? Really? Given the information we have now? This incident? An incident in which a mentally ill man who really was no threat was shot to death?
Don’t get me wrong, from what I have seen so far, the officers did the ‘right’ thing according to protocol and training, and I do not fault them. But this incident does not demonstrate that air marshals play a critical role in aviation security. It demonstrates that no matter what you do, tragic mistakes will still happen (and that is assuming the investigation turns up what we have been told so far).
Do people go into government and become this tin-eared and stupid, or do just people this stupid go into government? Or am I being unfairly harsh on this spokesman?
*** Update ***
Look- if he had said “This is an example of the ubiquitousness of Air Marshalls, and despite this tragedy, we should thank those men and women for their steadfast service,” that would have been one thing.
But to use what appears to be an accidental shooting as evidence of the ‘critical role’ air marshalls play…. puhleaze.
And why no straight answers about what happened?
Steve S
It’s something fairly new and recent, well slowly progressing over the past several decades.
It’s trained behavior.
People who don’t do this don’t last long.
Mr Furious
Nice comment, John. I agree wholeheartedly.
The problem is that this is not stupidity. This is probably a scripted statement designed to heighten awareness of Air Marshals—making sure people always remain tweaked and wary of terrorism, but also making sure they (the gov’t) appear vigilant.
JWeidner
My thinking is with you on this one John. I can’t fault the Marshals, they were acting according to their training, and we unfortunately live in a day and age where the air marshals taking even a moment to second guess themselves could lead to a massive loss of life (if someone actually did have a bomb). In a such situations, they don’t have the luxury of shooting to wound or injure. They have to kill to save the other passengers.
That said, IMO this is an awful tragedy and a political spokesman’s inability to see it as such just illustrates how far our government is falling while waging this war on terrorism.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Nope, not one bit.
Your post is spot on, John. I agree with it completely. Well said.
Anderson
What was Bismarck’s comment to Disraeli about taking Cyprus? “This is progress!” Which led Disraeli to comment, “Evidently his idea of progress was to seize something.”
Evidently, some people’s idea of progress is to shoot someone.
jg
To me its evidence of how paranoid the 9/11 incident has made us. I don’t fault the air marshall st all. I don’t know the solution but we are in a ‘ticking time bomb’ mentality lately.
Pb
This incident demonstrates the critical role that official spokesmen play in manipulating public opinion today.
db
Well said, John Cole.
I sense a future job for you as a govt spokesperson; better yet, why don’t you start a company and you can contract with the govt to actually train their spokespersons?
Al Maviva
why no straight answers about what happened
Because (1) the FBI probably hasn’t had a chance to interview everybody so any “straight” answer will be necessarily perspectival and not necessarily close to the “absolute” truth; (2) because the outcomes of lawsuits and criminal prosecutions and disciplinary actions may turn on getting an accurate account, and a premature version of the story with half-known facts would tend to undercut later, more accurate versions and even create liability for the agency; and (3) because criminal investigators who talk about criminal investigations to the press can inadvertently scuttle their criminal case.
db
But if this is Knocke fellow is one of those political hack appointees, then the comment does not surprise me one bit – correct causual linkages is not in the vocabulary of the current administration.
Recall that Simpson episode about the Bear Patrol?
Springfield Bear Patrol
So the fact that no terrorist attacks on planes have occurred and only one mentally ill person has been shot is evidence of the critical role the AMs play in the war against terrorism.
Bob In Pacifica
The government no longer gives straight answers. It lies when not bullshitting.
Marcus Wellby
I found it odd that I heard about this story about 10 times on various news outlets before I finaly heard the shooting happened on the jetway. I didn’t even hear that until I put on my local news this morning. But last night, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox gave the distinct impression (at least in the “updates”) that this happened in flight.
Richard Bottoms
>And why no straight answers about what happened?
Hmm, I seem to recall a minor incident about a guy on a subway in Britan being shot in the head a couple of times. Seems he was wearing heavy clothes in summer and jumped a turnstyle.
Or not.
John Cole
Al- Right, thanks. Now they should all just STFU.
Another Jeff
Al’s right. This barely happend more than 24 hours ago. And while no shooting is “standard” or “average”, the average investigation by a police department into a shooting during traffic stop takes longer than 24 hours, even though that’s the kind of thing they’ve probably investigated well more than once.
considering that this is basically the first onboard shooting in an aircraft that we’ve had since the Air Marshals program started, I imagine this one is gonna take significantly longer, not that i’d expect Kevin Drum to understand that.
TheNewGuy
Yes, John, I think you are being unnecessarily harsh on this spokesman. You’re not getting PC on us, are you?
What did he say that was untrue? The air marshals DO have a critical role in airline security: the role being to “take the shot” if they think a guy actually DOES have a bomb. The fact that it ended up being a mentally ill guy without said ordnance doesn’t detract from that role. If they reasonably thought he was a danger, I’d be more concerned if they didn’t take him out.
You’re starting to get into monday-morning-quarterbacking territory… let’s let the facts come out before we hang anybody, shall we?
OCSteve
I have to admit that I’m a little put off by the conflicting stories – did he say “I have a bomb” or “it’s NOT like I have a bomb” which I have seen around somewhere. Did he say nothing and just rush off the plane? I know that feeling after a long flight when you are just waiting and waiting for all those rows ahead of you to get their shit together and move out. Add in mental illness and off the meds…
On the other hand – if the FAM heard BOMB in any context from the guy that is what matters. Any delay in immediately complying with their orders and reaching into a backpack – they did the right thing.
Reminds me more and more of the London subway shoot – seemed solid at first then fell apart pretty fast.
Thank goodness we have people willing to do these difficult jobs.
Right now I am mostly sorry for his wife to witness this.
John S.
Just a little white propaganda from the government to help quench the fires lit by those pesky 9/11 commission folk.
yet another jeff
So, any incident where an officer of the law felt threatened and a tragic death of an innocent person was the result demonstrates the critical role that law enforcement officials play in keeping us all safe?
Why didn’t they think of a line like that in Paris? Could have saved a lot of cars that way.
Al Maviva
>>>Just a little white propaganda from the government to help quench the fires lit by those pesky 9/11 commission folk.
Yeah, John S, that’s what it was. They killed him on purpose to distract the public from the 9/11 commissioner’s press tour.
And not a sparrow falls, but by the providence of George Dubya Bush…
The Disenfranchised Voter
TheNewGuy…
John wasn’t taking issue with the belief that “the AM’s play a critical role in aviation security today”, what he was taking issue with is the statement that this shooting demonstrated that critical role.
The spokesperson is just talking out of his ass. This incident did no such thing. I thought John made that point clear; I hope I made it clearer.
neil
For some people, it is a _de facto_ good thing when police kill a threatening man on an airplane. Some of them post on this blog, and many work for the government. NB The same rules apply to threatening men in subway stations.
OCSteve
If you were on that plane perhaps you might think differently. Save it until the facts are in.
ppGaz
No, you are not being too harsh. Bascially, the mentally ill are essentially disposable in our society. By that I mean, it would be relatively easy to acquaint law enforcement and other responders with the basics of identifying the common Bipolar Disorder condition of mania, or manic psychosis, which is probably what was going on with this guy. It is not a rocket science thing to spot, most of the time. It’s pretty profound. The manic psychotic cannot reliably tell a tree from a dog. He is terrified of anything and everything, or may think that he can step off a 12-story building and float through the air. It is not necessary to kill these people. It’s just conveninent, because it’s easier than trying not to.
Sure, the law enforcement types and the flight attendants are going to scream. Oh, it’s too hard and too dangerous, we can’t be put into that position. Well, yeah, sometimes it is hard, but it’s not THAT hard to avoid a large percentage of these “accidents.” I am not a doctor, but I can spot a manic psychotic about 80 percent of the time, usually in a very short time. I’ve been in roughly the situation that this man’s wife was in, with an ill relative, more than once, so I know the drill. So far we haven’t gotten anyone killed.
Bipolar Disorder is pretty common as illnesses go. All of you are working and living alongside bipolars every day, whether you know it or not.
yet another jeff
I do want to believe that we’re being protected by people using a better method than the Uncle Jim “he’s coming right for us” doctrine.
I worry that actually isn’t satire.
TheNewGuy
ppGaz,
I’m a doctor, and I deal with the mentally-ill. Never, ever underestimate a person in the throes of a florid mania. Bipolar patients in the manic phase of their disease require very careful handling, and sometimes enormous amounts of sedative medication to bring down. These are the guys you hear about that fight five or six police officers before they get them into handcuffs. In contrast to a schizophrenic who talks to God, manic bipolars think they ARE God… they’re very grandiose, often hypersexual, and extremely emotionally labile.
It can also be difficult to delineate one psychosis from another, particularly in the acute phase: brief reactive psychosis, depression with psychotic features, steroid psychosis, amphetamine psychosis, mania with psychosis? Sometimes even psychiatrists can’t tell the difference at a glance… it’s probably unrealistic to expect that level of expertise from flight attendants and air marshals.
It may simply be that the physiologic stress of the flight was enough to tip this man over.
ppGaz
True enough. But I think it is usually possible to get them under control without killing them.
“Sometimes even psychiatrists …” etc. Sure, but a lot of the time, it’s not that hard. Which is what I said in the first place. The fact is that a lot of bipolars get killed in these situations because it’s easier and cheaper to kill them than it is to prevent a large percentage of these things from happening.
The reason why more care isn’t taken to equip responders to deal with these situations is that it’s really easy to say the things you are saying, and walk away. Well, tut tut, and all that. Sorry, I’ve been in that situation, and I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that the professionals or the responders are doing all that can reasonably be done.
ppGaz
Why aren’t the families of bipolars properly trained and equipped to deal with these situations? Why the hell was he on a plane in the first place? If a loved one of mine were manic would would not find him or her anywhere a damned airport if I had anything to say about it.
In fifteen years of being a family member, I’ll tell you this: I’ve gotten NOTHING in the way of help and advice from doctors about how to cope with these emergencies. Nothing. I have zero respect for the professional community in this regard. Every little tidbit of information I’ve gained, I’ve gained by digging and scratching for it on my own time and nickel.
If I were a mental health professional, I’d be getting up in front of my peers and telling them that we suck, that we aren’t doing our jobs. Seriously. A great many of these folks appear to be frazzled pill pushers whose idea of helping in an emergency is tell desperate family members to call 911. Or call back during office hours. Don’t get me started. It’s a national disgrace.
Richard Bottoms
Not a lot of luck with passengers confirming the word bomb was ever mentioned.
Ooppsie.
Don
John, it’s not tin ear, it’s a desperate need to use every chance to repeat the line about DHS success regardless of facts. Bruce Schneier blogged about another moronic bit of doublethink back in March when DHS claimed that thousands of false alarms (which presumably result in time and effort verifying they are false) were an indication of a good system. They’re not, and neither is shooting a man who wasn’t an actual bomb threat. Both might be inevitable in a system that works but they’re not success. They’re necessary evils.
ppGaz, I think you’re way off the mark here. There are definately situations when force is not called for and all efforts should be made to restrain someone without a fatality, but there’s a very reasonable point where a peace officer has to consider the consequences of doing nothing (kaboom), the consequences of shooting (one death) and what they do and do not know (is this person telling the truth).
In this case they didn’t know how on the level he was and made the decision that possibly saving one disturbed individual from himself was less important than saving dozens of innocents from a terrorist. If the situation is as it has been portrayed to be I think they were correct beyond a shadow of a doubt and I hope they’re cleared to get back to work protecting us ASAP. It’s a tragedy but calling their response lazy (“It’s just conveninent, because it’s easier than trying not to.”) is horribly unfair to people working in a snap-decision situation with limited information.
ppGaz
Nah, baloney. You weren’t there. That’s a wild extrapolation of the facts.
What would point to a terrorist here? Do terrorists generally run screaming around crowds of people like this?
They reacted to a terrorist threat because that’s what they’re trained to do. If they were trained to take stock and NOT assume they were dealing with a terrorist, why wouldn’t we expect a different outcome?
Like I said, the liklihood is that this guy, like most people in his situation, gets killed because that’s the cheapest and easiest way out. The world is quite literally filled with disturbed people. Now, if I read you correctly, they are just fair game because, gee, we’re so scared of terrorists?
Bullshit. I am not buying that at all.
ppGaz
What’s “horribly unfair” is that these people are not better trained and equipped to deal with these situations.
Mike S
I was on a 10 hour flight yesterday so I missed the whole thing. I fly often and am not paranoid even though people try so hard to make me so. I think the constant “be afraid, be very afraid” talk is doing far nore damage than anything else.
I don’t know enough about this situation to form an opinion on it other than my initial feeling that the marshals did what they felt they had to. The London incident last summer taught me a lesson in jumping to the defence of the police too quickly which is why I say that it’s a feeling. And since I just came back from London I can tell you that you can’t be in an underground station fro more than 5 minutes without hearing the “be afraid…” talk.
There are legitamit reasons to be concerned about terrorism and to be wary. But the people in charge are going a bit overboard and at times are creating a siege mentallity that just does not fit the situation. Instead it creates a paranoia that has the possibility of causing problems that wouldn’t be there if people didn’t always think they have to “be afraid.”
ppGaz
TheNewGuy
Psychotic manics can be hard to handle, even for trained personnel. They can fight through doses of medication that would render a normal person comatose. Some have such severe psychomotor agitation that they require iatrogenic paralysis and ventilatory support; such advanced interventions and sedative drugs are very difficult to safely train/provide to the garden-variety first-responder.
I encourage families to participate in the care of their relatives. In my experience, good family support is often the difference between a productive, stable psychiatric patient, and one who lives on the street, bouncing from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. Family members can make sure the patient stays on their medication, monitor doses, watch for signs of decompensation or toxicity, and ultimately bring the patient in at the first sign of trouble… they usually see psychotic breaks coming before they happens.
People should always remember that an airplane flight is a significant physiologic stress, combined with a vacation from civilization. If you have a medical emergency at 30,000 feet, you’re a long way from the nearest hospital, often with little equipment and few trained personnel on-board to help. I’ve been on flights where people got sick, including a cardiac patient who tried to arrest before my eyes, and this was years before they started putting AEDs on planes. People on oxygen, brittle epileptics, cardiac patients… these people can all be sensitive to that drop in the partial pressure of oxygen that occurs at flight altitude.
Despite the fact that this incident happened on the ground, a little low-level hypoxia could have started this ball rolling long before the plane landed.
ppGaz
Yes, I’ve participated in the tackling of a manic psychotic person …. six people to drag down a 140 lb person who had enough Ativan on board to choke a horse.
Like I said, I know the drill.
The facts in this story are unfolding, and I have serious doubts that in the final analysis, this is going to be anything other than a hammer treating an unknown problem like a nail.
Steve S
I think the fear culture that has developed post 9/11 is a prime example of how Americans have turned into fucking cowards.
A coward is someone who shoots first, asks questions later.
Mike S
link
TheNewGuy
Mike,
Quite a bit of editorializing in that piece you linked, and all from a single witness. “McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.” No, what he means is that HE never heard it. With the noise level on most airplanes, he might not have heard a great deal of what was said.
Besides… a construction worker doesn’t think lethal force was necessary, and that all that “pointing the guns” was over the line? Well. Does know how many terrorist bombs and IEDs in Iraq and elsewhere are triggered by cellphone? Does he know the reason police, SWAT, and bomb-squad guys NEVER use their radios or cell phones near a suspected explosive device? Does he know that many suicide bombers have a backup cellphone-wielding triggerman to ensure the primary detonator doesn’t fizzle, or that bomber doesn’t lose his nerve? It’s precisely because Joe-construction-worker knows none of the above, that he can’t see the reason for having a cellphone chopped out of his hand.
That doesn’t change the fact that it was the right thing to do.
In fact, most civilians know none of the above, and this is part of the reason why police use-of-force cases are judged from the legal standard of a reasonable police officer, not the usual “reasonable man” standard.
We’re going to hear a lot of post-incident opinion and analysis from people who don’t understand these issues. I have a feeling a lot of axes are going to be ground in the next few weeks.
ppGaz
Yeah, and there’s no “editorializing” in the instant statements by officials that this was a “good shoot” and that the thing “validates the air marshall program.”
What a bunch of crap. They took statements from the shooters and immediately announced that the whole thing is a big success.
ppGaz
And … you’re here to represent the downtrodden, put-upon medical profession?
How profoundly noble of you. Why don’t you try living with the live-and-death matter 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for a decade or two, and then come back and deliver some more lectures?
Dave D
The amount of bench-racing I’ve seen here is simply staggering. It’s as if half the commenters were actually THERE, instead of having read several contradictory pieces of reporting before all the facts came in.
Here’s a favorite: “The fact is that a lot of bipolars get killed in these situations because it’s easier and cheaper to kill them than it is to prevent a large percentage of these things from happening.”
Unlike many of the Monday morning quarterbackers here, I’ve helped create training materials for law enforcement and military personnel. “Easier and cheaper to kill them?” What exactly makes you qualified to pontificate on the use of force guidelines for law enforcement? Because Aunt Francine takes lithium for manic depression?
And at what point does Officer Friendly have to diagnose Passenger Crazy’s particular illness before acting? Is it in the eyes? The sweat? If you know so much, hire yourself out to the local cops and train them in such diagnostics so they can deal with the mentally unstable in a far more efficient way than killing them.
Because we all know that once a law enforcement officer shoots someone, he just comes back to work the next day, fills out some extra paperwork, and gets right back out on the street/airport. Happens on TV all the time.
TheNewGuy
ppGaz,
Calm yourself.
I don’t represent the downtrodden put-upon medical profession… I represent only myself, and like you, I was simply sharing my experience and expertise.
You clearly have a deep personal stake in mental health issues, and a scornful disdain for the medical profession. Neither of those are my doing, so you can save the snark.
ppGaz
Maybe. But you seem a little eager to defend the blue line here. Alas, you ran into me, a longtime veteran of these SMI “family support” wars. I have had twenty years of listening to self-serving “professionals” tell me how much they know, and I am underwhelmed by the results I see.
I can get the kind of advice you are talking about for free from any good pharmacist or bipolar-family neighbor or attendee at a support group.
Let me be blunt: There a lot of professionals out there who could profit greatly from listening to the people they think they are helping. I mean, really listening.
Bipolar family members mostly don’t need lectures and advice, they need real help. They need help with their insurance issues. They need help with crisis management. They need information. They need strategies. Sometimes they just need relief. And they need a system that doesn’t produce the fucked-up thing that happened in Florida, and stands by while officials call it a big success.
bago
After reading this I get the feeling that someone had an itchy trigger finger.
bago
Lets try fixing that tag shall we?
After reading this I get the feeling that someone had an itchy trigger finger.
TheNewGuy
If I seem eager to defend the blue line, it’s because I have a law-enforcement background; I was once part of that blue line, and I’ve seen how these cases are played in the media.
How many times is the officer portrayed as wrong/suspect/racist/corrupt, even in cases where it was later found to be a reasonable shoot? I believe I exhorted, in my very first post, to wait until the facts come out before we hang anybody… I still think that’s the way we should play it. If it seems like I’m playing devil’s advocate here, it’s because I perceive that people are very quick to judge these officers on very little information.
I strongly doubt the construction worker heard everything. Noise levels on a commercial airliner are typically 70-80dB. At 80dB, conversation isn’t understandable beyond a distance of about five feet. On your next flight, try having a “normal” conversation with somebody a few seats over, without raising your voice, and without leaning his direction a bit. How did this construction worker, seated in the middle of the plane, hear everything from a man who was seated in the back of the aircraft?
That’s amazingly sharp-eared for a guy who is 44yo (auditory acuity decreases with age), and has probably spent his life around construction sites, hammers, powered saws, and nailguns.
Then again, he might have said something different, and the context got lost in Time magazine’s editing process.
ppGaz
Well, that’s a point, if minor. After all, we have a costly and endless war going on that was jumped into on very little information.
People acting on very little information is pretty ubiquitous nowadays, eh? For example, how much information did these air marshalls have before they unloaded half a dozen rounds on a desperate, unarmed man who was NOT IN AN AIRPLANE at the time?
When it comes to jumping to conclusions, it’s the officially announced (all the way to the White House) thumbs-up on this “good shoot” based on no solid information at all that caused my reaction … and still does. I call that bullshit. I stand by that call.
I also stand by my assertion that the seriously mentally ill are disposable citizens in this country, and it’s completely unnecessary that it be that way.
TheNewGuy
For those interested (articles are long), here are a few references related to what I wrote above.
Article from the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine
Article from British Airways about in-flight noise
Particularly note Table 2 in the second article. It gives in-flight decibel levels for a number of common commercial aircraft. With the noise floor being as high as it is on most airliners, we’d be wise to carefully scrutinize what witnesses think they heard or didn’t hear.
Just a suggestion.
Kris
While I agree with John, I think this story brings up a very important question. Are we capable of fully securing ourselves against the right people? While the air marshals successfully killed an innocent man, the CIA is in the news for the practice of rendition against innocent and maybe guilty (I don’t know) individuals, and a handful of the guilty terrorists have been captured or killed, there are still many, many more who remain and continue to terrorize. Iraq is a great example of a place that seems uncontrollable. So uncontrollable that after major combat operations were declared over on May. 2, 2003, Bush is set to ask Congress for another 100 Billion dollars for the Iraq war in 2006. What are we fighting? Will we be able to win using these tactics?
This reminds me of the New Orleans Mayor’s and Louisiana Governor’s response to looters after Hurricane Katrina. Martial Law was declared and Shoot to Kill orders were made. I am scared to know what would happen if there is another mass disaster in the US or the world. I am terrified to know what would happen, if I were a victim subjected to it.
Many have, are, and will continue to be part of the fallen unknown because of the backwards policies of people in charge and this belief that the US can fully secure itself from all threats by the use of force. I don’t believe that terrorism and insurgents will ever disappear, but we sure can reduce it. Unfortunately, the US has been successful at increasing the numbers of terrorists and insurgents. This is a prescription for disaster.
ppGaz
A good deal of this information pertains to what witnesses saw and heard ON THE GROUND. The airplane was on the ground for some time before the shooting, which occurred during boarding, not flight.
WTF does that have to do with “aerospace medicine?”
Mike S
Those kind of comments always crack me up. I can just imagine the dorky smile Davey the D had on his face as he came up with those names.
Davey D’s are all to common in wingerville. Just as common as the idiots who immediately attack cops who have to shoot people when there is no other choice. Both breeds are all too pathetic.
Umm, have you ever been on a plane during boarding? It just so happens that I was only 36 hours ago and I could hear just fine, I’m 40 so maybe my “auditory acuity” will be shot in the next 4 years.
I don’t know what happened on that plane. I do know that as of yet I haven’t seen an eyewitness account saying the word bomb was ever used. But I have seen 2 witnesses say he didn’t. I hope the officers were right for their own sake.
Ask John Cole about saying “good” when the police report that they killed someone they thought was a terrorist because of the actions of that person. He had enough class to say he regretted that post. I wonder if some of the people here will have as much class if the same kind of thing happened here as did on the London tube.
TheNewGuy
I’m simply advocating the position that we need more facts before we crucify anybody, and I gave several reasons why the witnesses’ accounts might be suspect. I’m afraid I don’t understand some posters’ problem with me offering a reasonable counterpoint to the “damned trigger-happy cops” angle. I don’t want to convict these cops based on the unsworn statements of two passengers, who may not have even been in a position to hear what was said, and may not have witnessed the final seconds.
What happened during the taxi-to-the-gate phase is only part of the story. The man’s behavior and what he said/did during the whole flight is relevant, and I’d submit to you that probably most of the passengers couldn’t reliably tell you what was said before the final minutes, for the reasons I delineated above.
Also (and this is for you, ppGaz), the incident happened at the END of the flight, when they were preparing to disembark, NOT during boarding, and the physiological stress of flight may have contributed to his behavior. That, not to put too fine a point on it, is WTF aerospace medicine has to do with it. You may not think it’s important, but I guarantee an attorney somewhere sure as hell does.
As a final point, what if he didn’t say “bomb?” I hope for the officers’ sakes he did, but what if he didn’t? I’ll tell you from personal experience: when you’re at gunpoint, you do EXACTLY as you’re told, because you’re literally a couple-pound trigger-pull away from death. Plenty of unarmed people have been shot by the police for reaching into a pocket for their ID, instead of immediately showing their hands and laying on the ground. Even off-duty cops reaching for their badge have been shot this way. In an adrenaline-charged situation like the one on that plane, doing the wrong thing can get you killed. In the final calculus, this case may be just that simple.
That, my friends, is the reality.
Dave D
I’m sure the smile on my face when I wrote “Officer Friendly” could only be matched by the idiot grin on the yap of the kind of dickhead that spends his entire life considering himself to be superior to others without providing a scintilla of evidence to prove the case. It must suck to be so smart in such a world of wingers, Mikey S. How do you bear up?
That’s your counter-argument? That’s what you’ve got? You’re an asshole, Mikey S. I’m sure I’m not the only one that sees it.
ppGaz
You know what, if you are going to sit here and shoot your mouth off about this story you at least should get the basic facts straight. They’ve been out there since the first 4 hours.
The incident happened during boarding, as I said. Alpizar got off the plane when it stopped over in Miami, and reboarded. He, and the plane, had been on the ground for a while.
This is not an “aerospace medicine” story. It’s an SMI story, and a more common one that most people think.
And then we have this from you:
And I’m advocating that we not do the opposite, which is to hand out medals to the shooters, until we have those additional facts. Because this story smells to high heaven, and the authorities seem to be in a hurry to call it a big success and move on. I think the case needs to be gone over with a fine toothed comb.
ajay
The aircraft was on the ground and the doors were open – so the engines would have been off – so talking about average in-flight noise is somewhat irrelevant, isn’t it? I don’t think airliners normally sit at the gate with engines running.
jukeboxgrad
“the incident happened at the END of the flight, when they were preparing to disembark, NOT during boarding”
Many media reports say you’re wrong. Please indicate one that says you’re right.
jukeboxgrad
Oops, sorry, I didn’t realize ppGaz had already made the point. I should empty the browser cache before I reload the page. I have a feeling that’s why I missed his post.
ppGaz
Not a problem …. something tells me that it’s going to take more than once to get anything across to this guy.
Barry
John Cole: “Do people go into government and become this tin-eared and stupid, or do just people this stupid go into government?”
It does seem to be a mandatory for spokespeople, and certainly not just for government. You’ve never heard corporate spokesman be this dishonest?
I’ve known only one honest spokesperson for a major organization, who’s my cousin (the spokesperson, that is). I dread the day when I open the paper and see a lie coming from her mouth, because I can’t imagine that they won’t eventually require it.
demimondian
As someone who’s been a corporate spokesthing, I want to take issue with what you just said.
PR should never be about telling lies — telling a lie always makes things worse for you in the end. When you speak for a company, your credibility is the tool you use to get your side out in the press. If you squander it by lying, you lose the capacity to get your voice out.
PR, and corporate messaging in general, can be — and should be — about empahsizing the “good things that [your organization] is doing”. It is not about telling the whole truth, but rather about making sure that your side of the whole truth gets out, and leaving representatives of competing viewpoints to handle their own presentation.
Mike S
Snif. I’m so hurt that some winger thinks I’m an asshole. How will I ever go on with my life now? Is there a chance that at redemption for me? Golly gee, I hope so because I just can’t see how I can continue to live without the acceptance of Dave D.
A little hint Davey. I don’t have a case to prove. I want the Marshal’s to be proven to be in the right.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Then the officers had no real reason to consider him a security threat.
If the man didn’t say he had a bomb, or give any other actual indication that he was a security threat then this situation will be a repeat of the London indicident this past summer in which an innocent man was murdered by the police.
TheNewGuy
ppGaz said “The incident happened during boarding, as I said. Alpizar got off the plane when it stopped over in Miami, and reboarded
I would say “point taken” and be done with it, but it turns out we’re both wrong. Taken from the Miami Herald… Link:
Alpizar and his wife, Anne, arrived at Miami International Airport on Wednesday just past noon aboard a daily flight from Quito, Ecuador, where they had gone to do church missionary work. Their connecting flight, American Airlines Flight 924, arrived Wednesday from Medellín, Colombia.
Connecting the dots from several articles, it now appears there was roughly a two-hour interval on the ground (Miami is basically at sea level), so any borderline hypoxia should have corrected itself… my mistake. Assuming the Herald has it correct, my previous posts may have been an unnecessary tangent.
I’d be interested to know, however, how long the marshals had been surveiling the man. Other passengers noted him in line singing hymns to himself, and acting nervous and agitated.
I also wonder if they considered the possibility that he was a drug mule or body-stuffer. When a cocaine-filled condom begins to leak in the intestines, it gives a person a huge dose of cocaine, which could easily produce all the symptoms this man displayed.
Mike S
God I hope they didn’t. That would be far worse than an honest mistake about a bomb.
ppGaz
Hmm. Right now, if I had to choose, I’d be more inclined to wager that you are a drug mule. But as I said, all the facts are not in.
Orlando Sentinel:
See, if you run off a plane, terrified that there might be a bomb, and say so, you are going to get killed, because that’s what the procedures say to do. You can’t ask trained authorities to distinguish between someone afraid of a bomb, and someone carrying a bomb. That’s too complicated. Shoot first.
It’s for your protection. It’s all part of the war on terror.
Well, the war on some peoples’ terror.
Or whatever.
Jay
Is it really “ubiquitousness?” I always use “ubiquity.”
TheNewGuy
Right now, if I had to choose, I’d be more inclined to wager that you are a drug mule
Ah, ppGaz… you wit. Are you sure it wasn’t you that needed the Ativan and the six guys in white coats? You discussed that whole incident in the third-person, as a “participant,” but I’m beginning to suspect some literary license…
Anyway, you have a great blog going here, John… I enjoyed it.
john mcalhany
why dont you get the facts before you open your damn mouth!the man had already cleared miami customs after coming from doing church work in his native country.he worked in the paint depatment at home depo.he was a regular joe. just like some of you said i was.i am a construction superintendant.i have been to safety training and recognizing situations classes for years,ongoing.perfect safety record. oh, by the way,my wife of 18 years is bipolar.so,why not refer back to my first sentence.