Do you believe Rigoberto Alpizar told the feds he had a bomb?

[RagingInMiami]

I know it's early in the investigation, but everybody is forming their own opinions from what has been reported.

[jeanarrett]

1. No! I do not. I think the poor guy was trying to get off

the plane because he was having a panic attack. No other passengers heard him say this (so far). Only the words of the air marshalls after he was already off and in the tunnel. Read the guy's account from his interview with Time. Pointed a shotgun into the back of this guy's head and karate chopped his cell phone out of his hand. Pointing a gun at a little girl. Sounds a bit over the top to me.

Edited to provide the link:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1138965,00.html

[Neil Lisst]

14. It's the problem with today's law enforcement.

They all know that when they shoot a guy, it needs to be a good shooting. Unfortunately, that almost always means embellishment of the story, if not outright lying.

They can't say

"Look, he was acting weird, we took him out of the plane, he bolted and we shot him before he could do anything else. We didn't know if he was armed in any way. We shot because that's what we're trained to do. The end."

I don't think he ever mentioned a "bomb" or reached into his bag, like they reported. But, he apparently did bolt and run, and in America in 2005, that's enough to get you killed.

[rock]

2. No, I don't believe it

Nor do I disbelieve it.

[lpbk2713]

3. If the boys and girls at FEMA can deviate 180° from the truth .....

so can any other governmental agency. The first priority in the Bushco administration always has been CYA.

[RagingInMiami]

4. Notice how quick the White House was to defend their actions

"You've done a heck of a job, (name of federal marshals)"

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-128miadeath,0,6281539.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

[usedtobesick]

22. notice the trend... No body is ever held accountable

and the surest kiss of death is White House support for your actions.

[RagingInMiami]

23. That what I was thinking

If the WH says it's day, I know it is night.

[usedtobesick]

27. Seems nothing said from there anymore is truth. Sad commentary

Off topic How you been? Long time no see...

[RagingInMiami]

29. I'm doing cool

Still shooting, but mostly learning Photoshop. Like ITF, I'm also new to digital, having bought my camera a little over a year ago. Can't wait to have a few beers with you guys again.

[usedtobesick]

32. rumors are she could be in MS for 6 months starting in Jan

could be a chance for beer

[stray cat]

5. I don't know - I kind of like evidence for my beliefs

to make them more meaningful. Faith in nothing is still nothing. I'll wait until I have something to base my beliefs on especially before I pass judgement on individuals involved in a tragedy....

[SoCalDem]

6. I think the guy got a phone call that upset him, argued with his wife

and did a bull-headed , dumb thing.. and it got him killed :(

I wonder who called him.. he might have wanted to get back off the plane and tend to whatever the call was about, and the wife could have told him to wait til they got home..(probably less than 45 minutes)..

We'll probably never know.. and the only time the word "Bomb" is mentioned is when the marshalls are mentioned.. Every passenger who has spoken out, has said that ONLY the wife was overheard saying anything..

It doesn't surprise me though, because travel is an edgy, uncomfortable experience these days..I feel sorry for the young folks who never got to experience travel when it was carefree and fun..

When the 747 inaugural flight between Chicago & LA flew, I was on it.. There was a full sized piano in the coach lounge..cocktail tables with swivel seats..the upstairs first class lounge had an OPEN DOOR to the cockpit, and the pilots swiveled around and had conversations with us. I even got to sit in to co-pilot seat on the way to Jan Juan (warned not to touch anything)..

There were fashion shows on Air Jamaica....and we even had a bingo game on a night flight on Delta once..

..I hate to fly now, because I still remember when it was fun/.

[RagingInMiami]

8. I remember those days

I was a kid and would fly with my mom to Colombia. As a kid, they took me in the cockpit where I took a photo (this was the late 1970s). I remember it being a lot more laid back.

I even walked on a plane with a baseball bat because it wouldn't fit in my luggage and I wanted to play ball down in Colombia.

Imagine trying to do that today. Bang, you're dead.

[SoCalDem]

12. In 1972 we brought a poodle puppy back home from Christmas

and we flew at midnight to get a less than full flight..The stewardess heard the puppy crying in her carry on container.. She took Gidget out, got her some sausage from a breakfast tray and let her wander around in the galley.. Even showed her to the pilots..That would NEVER happen now

[leftstreet]

7. "...he uttered threatening words that included a sense that..."

whatever that means

From PBS interview yesterday with James Bauer, official with Air Marshal Service

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec05/miami_12-7.html

JAMES BAUER: At approximately 2:10 this afternoon, American Airlines Flight 924 was boarding at Gate D.-42 -- it was in the boarding process. An individual later tentatively identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, age 44, was boarding that aircraft as well.

At some point, he uttered threatening words that included a sense that, in fact, that he had a bomb. There were federal air marshals on board the aircraft. They came out of their cover, confronted him, and he remained noncompliant with their instructions.

As he was attempting to evade them, his actions caused the FAM's to fire shots and, in fact, he is deceased.

The Miami-Dade Police Department responded to this event and in fact are conducting the shooting investigation.

The FBI also responded to this, and a crime was committed aboard an American carrier aircraft and they have jurisdiction in that matter, and to see whether or not there's a nexus to terrorism.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. I could tell something was wrong with the whole thing when they

blew up the guy's underwear & there was no bomb. After they shot the man for nothing, the rest was pure bravado.

It would seem that everybody would have been better off had there been no "air marshals" in the first place.

[Angry Girl]

10. They definitely lied. The CNN news coverage was very strange

The order in which information came in was fishy and did not make any sense. I can't remember exactly how it went but we all thought it was strange how the "bomb" bit of info was added waaaaay late, way after we were told other info. It wasn't anything obvious but if you have the tape, watch the order in which they display the Chiron info.

[Burning Water]

11. I don't know, but

if they lied, why did they shoot him?

[SoCalDem]

13. adrenalin rush..and fear

:(

[Burning Water]

46. What

were they afraid of? Why was their adrenalin rushing? Was there no perceived threat?

[Angry Girl]

15. Dead men tell no tales

And the rest of the passengers are going to be too damned scared to put their lives on the line for a stranger. A fascist with a gun and a Homeland Sekurity badge can be very intimidating, especially when he has the backing of a right-wing Supreme Court and that unholy piece of fascist filth they call the Patriot Act.

We were all discussing that as we watched. First they announced the poor man had been shot. We thought it was unfortunate -- another gun-happy, power-crazy cowboy type (as are most people who go into law enforcement). After all, why shoot a mentally disturbed man? Certainly he could have been tackled to the ground, overpowered, tasered, etc., etc. These guys are professionals - they know how to disarm and overpower a civilian!

Then they announced the poor man was dead. And shortly thereafter they started spouting the T word (terrorist that, terrorist this). We found this to be rather alarming.

My Jewish ancestors in Berlin warned me about such things.

[jeanarrett]

16. Amen, AG.

[Burning Water]

20. Yes, I can see that.

President Bush has trained his SS so well that they never could kill someone by mistake. It's not like they are human, too, and make mistake. Brain-dead numb bots. Sarcasm? You decide.

C'mon, I'm not trying to defend Bush, or the Patriot Act here, or even the Supreme Court. What tale is this dead man not going to tell?

Perhaps the man was crazy, but this gives him no special privilege not be be shot, other than the one we all have. The air marshals are not trained psychiatrists, nor do they have time to run an analysis on the man. He presented a threat, and paid the price. I'm OK with that, although there should be an investigation, not to throw blame, but to see if this can be prevented in the future. And I think it is tragic and sad.

The man, as I heard it, was bi-polar, and had not taken his medicine. Why not? This more or less makes this his fault, because if he had to take medicine he knew that he was crazy without it. What about the man's wife? Shouldn't she have made him take his pills while traveling?

Without evidence to the contrary, I think the marshals are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. "Innocent until", you know?? I would be interested in seeing any evidence that they deliberately set out to kill this man, or whatever accusation you are trying to make, here.

What is it, by the way?

[Xenotime]

17. When they guy is dead..

they can say he said anything. He could have said, "I love my mom" BANG!

[Bucky]

18. Need another option: "We have no way of knowing this. Open investigation"

This is why you need a transparent government. Trust is at an all time low. That's the real cost of the government lying to us over so many different issues.

[kenny blankenship]

19. No no no. He said "plane travel in Bush's Amerikkka is DA BOMB"

as in so exciting.

[usedtobesick]

21. No I keep trying to find the time line but

it looks like they choose badly. No excuse for pulling the trigger. Wife was in the back of the plane yelling that he was not right.

[Selatius]

24. How come there is no agnostic position here?

I don't have enough facts to make a decision one way or the other.

[conflictgirl]

25. I wish there was an option for "I don't know"

I don't feel like I have enough of the facts to say conclusively if I believe the feds or not. That's not presuming innocence on the part of the feds, either. I probably haven't seen as much media about this story as some others here, but based on the info I do have I just can't answer yet.

[dailykoff]

26. Doubtful.

This is sounding a lot like the Brazilian guy gunned down in London, supposedly for acting suspiciously, only it turned out to be just a case of trigger-happy police getting some use out of their firearms. Happens all the time.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. What we "believe" doesn't matter. What matters is evidence and facts.

Too many people seem to be ready to jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts. I thought we liberals were the ones whose knees didn't jerk and who insisted on relying on facts and truth and not on emotions and incomplete media reports and on assumptions that support our prejudices.

I'm waiting for all the facts to come out, thank you very much.

[sendero]

30. If you believe that the "facts"..

... will ever be known, you have a lot more faith in this government than I do.

[RagingInMiami]

31. Thank you very much

Of course what we believe doesn't matter. We're not the damn jury. But we're also entitled to an opinion and discussion. There's a good reason why I put the words "for now" at each sentence in the poll.

But I also know facts can be covered up. Very easily. Especially if you're the federal government.

[Balbus]

33. Occam's razor

Which is more believable:

A) Mr. Alpizar was tragically and unfortunately killed because he led a federal air marshal to believe that he was carrying a bomb in his backpack & making threatening gestures, and the federal air marshal believed that there was a warranted risk to passengers and airport personnel

- or -

B) There was a bored federal air marshal with a wild hair up his ass that wanted to know what it felt like to shoot and kill some poor schlup - in a busy airport full of eye-witnesses no less - and we are now in the midst of a national conspiracy created by the Miami International Airport, Homeland Security, the White House and the news media all to protect one bored federal air marshal (with a wild hair up his ass) that wanted to know what it was like to randomly pick someone out of the crowd and shoot him dead for no apparent reason.

I know, it's a tough decision :shrug:

[Neil Lisst]

34. Do you really think life is that black and white?

And please don't use Occam's Razor, as if uttering the words invokes the thought process. This is not a circumstance where we have to wonder. We have witnesses who said he never mentioned a bomb.

The facts likely will show that while he didn't say anything about a bomb, he acted weird, he bolted, and they shot him because they felt he might be armed in some way.

One can doubt the truth of the story told without doubting the air marshals shot thinking they needed to shoot.

[EFerrari]

36. Oh, there you go, being reasonable again.

This has to stop, immediately!

[Balbus]

49. And we have a witness that said they did hear a bomb.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-08-marshals-defense_x.htm

Occam's razor applies fully in this situation.

[EFerrari]

35. Yes! Where are all those eye witnesses to this

mentally ill person of mass destruction? I'm dying to hear these heroes' stories :sarcasm:

[Neil Lisst]

37. He was probably shot unnecessarily.

But the marshals may not have reacted unreasonably. I just don't believe he said anything about a bomb, and I don't believe he reached in his bag. I believe he broke and ran, and they killed him because he broke and ran.

Justified? I don't know.

Necessary? Probably not.

[EFerrari]

38. I agree. And this incident will be repeated until we

stop pretending mental illness is some kind of character flaw.

On another thread I asked, why do the airlines routinely check for other kinds of disabilities on their flights -- but not mental health issues?

Who does everyone believe is in charge of mental health stuff day to day to day? Exhausted families.

We have this choice: we can go on down this path and let people die stupidly or we can begin to incorporate the realities of mental illness in the culture.

/typo

[Neil Lisst]

39. The number of mentally ill people killed by police is staggering.

It's a major problem. We have a police system that is entirely to ready to use deadly force.

[EFerrari]

41. Their tools aren't fine enough and they know it. Cops

are looking into this. Cops have put a national project together, that brings stakeholders together to work this out with mental health practitioners and also with people who deal with mental illness.

http://consensusproject.org/about-the-project/history_methodology_ab

Of course, this org was started in that other, kinder America we call the Clinton years. I'm surprised it has survived this long.

And, cops are generally tied to a community and have an investment in that community. Air marshals -- maybe not so much at this point.

If I'm not mistaken, NAMI reported that about 60% of families dealing with mental illness have police contact at some point.

[Balbus]

48. One is right here..

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-08-marshals-defense_x.htm

[EFerrari]

50. If you mean Glover, she was not a witness. She is a spokeswoman

for the flight attendents' union.

There is not one eye witness in that article that confirms the bomb cr@P.

[Darranar]

40. No more than I believed the British police fabrications

about the Brazilian man they killed.

[WernhamHogg]

42. No

I do not believe what the Feds are saying at the moment. I am keeping an open mind and waiting for more details to come out, but from the bits and pieces that have gotten out, something smells rotten.

[Mutley]

43. I don't know.

Apparently some witnesses heard it, some didn't. I need to see more proof to really make up my mind.

[eridani]

44. The evidence so far shows that the feds are lying.

That could, of course, change. We have three different witnesses who never heard anything about a bomb. If anybody besides a FAM heard such a thing, please post a link.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1138965,00.html

"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.

"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."

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

The 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.

<snip>

"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.

<snip>

Passenger Mike Beshears recalled Alpizar running off the plane clutching a bag, chased by a man in a Hawaiian shirt.

That man turned out to be one of the two air marshals.

Like Tirpak, Beshears said he did not hear Alpizar say anything. "He just was in a hurry and exited the plane," he said.

[EFerrari]

45. Criminalization of the Mentally Ill: Situation Normal in America

http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Public_Policy/Policy_Research_Institute/TRIAD/Results_from_NAMIs_online_survey_about_the_criminalization_of_people_with_mental_illness.htm


What You Said About the Criminalization of Mental Illness

TRIAD's first nationwide survey of NAMI members showed that the criminalization of mental illness is an unfortunate fact of life in this country. Forty-four percent of the individuals with a mental illness represented in the survey have been arrested or detained during their lives—29 percent of them in the last year alone. Jail diversion services were not available to most of those detained by the police in the last year—only 35 percent reported receiving services or supports to prevent arrest or detention and only a little more than half—60 percent—received needed mental health treatment following arrest or detention in the last year.

The disgraceful state of the mental health system means that all too often people with a mental illness end up in the hands of the criminal justice system due to the lack of treatments and services available to people with a mental illness and the difficulties of obtaining these services. Our web-based survey in August 2003 reaffirmed this shameful state of affairs for people with a mental illness in America. Forty-one people answered questions on their experiences with the criminal justice system, of which 48 percent of respondents were individuals with a mental illness and 52 percent were family members or friends.

An astonishing 80 percent of respondents had been arrested or detained by the police at some point in their lifetime—45 percent had been arrested or detained in the past year. Over two-thirds of individuals with a mental illness did not receive any services to prevent unnecessary arrest and less than half, 42 percent, received needed mental health treatment following the arrest or detention.

(More at link)

[tx_dem41]

47. OTHER: How in the hell would I know?

I wasn't there. I guess most of you were though. :eyes: