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Junkie
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We have another witness saying that he never said bomb.
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Witnesses in Miami airport shooting differ on whether Alpizar made bomb threat
A troubled man, a tense standoff and only seconds to decide whether to shoot or wait. It's a difficult but common situation for police officers and others with a gun and a badge.
But when it plays out at a busy airport and an unarmed man ends up dead, shot by those hired specifically to make airlines and passengers safer, nothing is routine. Toss in fears of terrorism in the post-9-11 era, mental illness and threats of a bomb, and Wednesday's shooting by federal air marshals at Miami International Airport becomes heavily scrutinized.
So far, the investigation into Rigoberto Alpizar's final minutes aboard an American Airlines 757 that was to take off for Orlando is focusing on his wild rage and whether he said he had a bomb.
Federal officials from several agencies said Alpizar repeatedly made that claim and reached for a backpack, leaving the two air marshals little choice but to open fire on the jetway just outside the plane's doors.
Several of the 113 passengers who arrived in Orlando from Miami, however, said Alpizar may have been delusional and may have run out of the plane only because he feared a bomb was on board.
"I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane; he never called out he had a bomb," said passenger Jorge Borelli, an Orlando architect.
The task of sorting out exactly what happened falls mainly to the Miami-Dade Police Department, which is in charge of the homicide investigation. Miami-Dade police Lt. Veronica Ferguson issued a statement saying early indications point to Alpizar running frantically from the airplane "with a backpack strapped to his chest, yelling that he had a bomb."
Detective Juan Del Castillo said people on the plane other than the marshals also heard the bomb threats. Del Castillo said Alpizar's threats and the marshal's orders to him were all in English.
After running from the plane, Alpizar, 44, of Maitland, turned in the jetway, walked menacingly toward the agents and reached into his backpack, police said. Marshals stepped back before firing at Alpizar, who died at the scene, police said.
Police would not say whether he made the threats on the airplane, on the jetway or in both locations. The marshals, who were not identified, have been put on paid administrative leave until completion of the investigation.
What prompted Alpizar to become so unstable is also under investigation. His wife, Anne Buechner, told investigators he had bipolar disorder and hadn't taken his medication. The couple was in Ecuador doing church missionary work and had flown in from Ecuador about two hours earlier. They had just boarded the plane to Orlando for the final leg home.
Alpizar's friends and family in the Orlando area described him as a friendly, well-liked man who never had any problems.
"Rigo Alpizar was a loving, gentle and caring husband, uncle, brother, son and friend," Jeanne Jentsch, Buechner's sister, said in a brief statement at the family's home. "He was born in Costa Rica and became a proud American citizen several years ago. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him."
The shooting was the first since the current Federal Air Marshal Service program went into effect following the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings and terrorist attacks. The exact number of marshals is classified, although officials acknowledge there are several thousand, assigned in groups of two to flights across the country.
All air marshals go through a seven-week course in Artesia, N.M., which includes a course called "managing abnormal behavior," according to Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle.
After that, they take a six-week course in Atlantic City, which involves training for various scenarios covering drunken passengers, terrorist threats, passengers who exhibit violent behavior and other situations, Doyle said.
Jim Bauer, special agent in charge of the air marshals' office in Miami, said the shooting was tragic for everyone involved but justified.
"This threat presented itself, and we believe it was necessary to use deadly force," Bauer said.
Bauer said the two air marshals had no contact with Alpizar until they overheard him threatening that he had a bomb. He said mental illness in this case is irrelevant.
"It really doesn't play into this at all. There's no time in making these split-second decisions to analyze their mental health," Bauer said. "It is truly an unfortunate event whether or not he was afflicted with any medical condition."
Officials with the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday that there is no indication that Alpizar acted irrationally before boarding the plane, as some passengers reported on Wednesday. Video cameras around Miami International Airport showed Alpizar acting normally, said TSA spokeswoman Lauren Stover.
In Costa Rica, the government called for an explanation from the United States, and President Abel Pacheco partly blamed American "paranoia" about terrorism. Meanwhile, Alpizar's brother had difficulty understanding why he was killed.
"They acted rashly," Carlos Alpizar said. "I will never accept that it was necessary to kill him as if he was some dangerous criminal. It is ironic that he adopted that country as his own, loved the U.S. as much as he loved Costa Rica, ... and still he was killed, mistaken for a terrorist."
Staff Writer Mc Nelly Torres and Staff Researcher William Lucey contributed to this report, which was supplemented with information from the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune Co. newspaper.
John Holland can be reached at jholland@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7909.
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Also, lets not forget that this is the same city that just a few days ago said it would carry out preemptive anti-terrorism drills on its on citizens in public places.
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Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Monday, November 28, 2005 3:45 PM EST
The Associated Press
By CURT ANDERSON
MIAMI (AP) — Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.
Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.
"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.
The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.
Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.
Timoney also noted that 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.
Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.
"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."
Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.
"You want to make your presence known and that's a great way to do it," said Viverette, police chief in Gaithersburg, Md. "We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware."
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So far what I know is that we have two seperate witness accounts of them not hearing the word bomb, and we have second hand accounts of federal officials who weren't there saying he did say bomb. Miami has also said it wants to carry out un-announced terrorism drills on it's own citizens to keep the terrorists guessing. Passengers said they were more afraid of the police who were pointing shotguns at their head than they were afraid of the guy who supposedly said the word bomb.
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"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."
In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
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I think it's naive to just accept the "official" account of him saying he had a bomb and that the air marshalls where just acting accordingly when the facts show that it might be much more involved than that. I think it's very possible that this kind of over the top anti-terrorism strategy escaletes otherwise easy to handle situations. We have a group of gung ho cops in Miami who can't wait to use their anti-terrorism training and have planned to "drill" on their on citizens. |