good for them...

finally someone does their job without worrying about what people will think.

Thats waht they were trained to do, i dont care if the guy was mentally or physically handicapped, he did not comply and was talking about a bomb. He reaches into a bag... hes a dead man.

I congratulate the marshalls on a fine job.

You know if they didnt shoot the guy... people would be all up in arms about "well why the hell are the marshalls there if they arent gonna do nothing?"

you cant win in this fucked up lawsuit happy politically correct world.

Then she should have never been carrying a weapon in the first place. She was not fit for the job.

I'm not pleased and I'm not upset, it was simply unfortunate but understandable and justified.

Interesting thought, replace United States with Israel, and no one would blink at the idea that a marshal shot the person.

From all the information I've gathered so far, I think this shooting was justified. It sucks that the first person shot wasn't actually a terrorist, but he made said he had a bomb so he was an immediate threat to everyone in the building. The same thing would happened if you told an officer you had a gun then whipped out your cellphone and pointed it at him.

Fair enough - didn't see his reply, and didn't get the out of context joke.

Sorry for any inconvenience...sticking up for a buddy of mine. (Xeph & I go way back, and he turned me onto TF Project)

I never suggested it wasn't.

I guess my question is....did they have to kill him? why couldnt they shoot him to disable him, say in the arm or leg or something

Re-read the posts... no one here is suggesting the outcome should have been any different. The only difference in the posts is that some are showing compassion for both a man who has to live with killing someone who ultimately wasn't a terrorist with a bomb and a man who was killed because he was mentally unstable and probably not 100% in control of actions.


It is an unfortunate situation that probably couldn't (and probably shouldn't) have ended any other way.

If he actually had a bomb? No. Shoot to kill is the only option. There are very few scenarios where the guy gets out alive without giving up.

You can't - if the guy has a finger on a trigger or inches away from a trigger, the marshall simply cannot take the risk he might activate it.

And, in combat situations, with a handgun, even hitting center body mass is not a given. A lot of cops, good on the range, miss completely from even 15 feet away under the stress of firing on another human being.

Yeah, all those cops and firefighters who quit after traumatic events like 9/11 are a bunch of wimps that should never have been hired in the first place.

:rolleyes:

mojo...it was not just one incident. i can remember four off the top of my head, and i know there were more. even Olsen, the heartless bastard, admitted that the problem was serious. so, yeah.

Also, the plural is "Somali" not "Somalian." :hmm:

Because 9/11 applies exactly to this situation.

If your job is to serve and protect, and to do that, you may have to shoot and kill another human being and you can't handle that, you shouldn't be doing that job in the first place. If you are doing that job, you could freeze up in the moment that decides whether a whole plane full of people lives or dies and that's not a risk worth taking with some one who isn't completely mentally able to do their job.

We recently had a nearly identical situation in my agency. The guy's mother thought we didn't have to shoot her son dead. Unfortunately, we only hit him once but it was an immediately fatal round, the man was shot with a shotgun slug that went under his left arm, went through both lungs, severed his spinal cord and exited under his right arm. A pretty stiff penalty for the behavior associated with mental illness. For what it's worth, to read the story it's here: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/app...512060303/1002

The mother is mad at US because her son did something that made these two agents afraid for their safety and they were forced to act to defend themselves. This is what I am afraid for for this Air Marshal, but it appears that people understand that, sometimes, we are left with no choice because we are NOT trained to recognize and deal with mentally ill people in less than one second.

I think the point being made is that you can train and train and then train some more... but until you actually kill someone, or witness bodies falling like sacks of wet cement, etc. you really don't know how you will react.

I don't care who you are or how "badass" you might think you are... you will react how you will react and all that training can do is give you some tools to help cope with your reactions.

One quote not in the OP:

“She said it was her fault that he was bipolar,” Mike Deshears, a Flight 924 passenger who works for a vacation club in Orlando, said. “He was sick and she had convinced him to get on the plane.”

Frankly, I have to agree with most here, the marshalls did what they had to do (in a Hawaiin shirt no less), but that sentence broke my heart. The poor guy was probably stressed far beyond his limits and his wife, probably meaning well, talked him into getting on a plane.

People who are OCD shouldn't even get on a plane, let alone bi-polar.

Within a matter of seconds, every life involved is dramatically changed for the worse. A woman loses the love of her life right before Christmas, the marshalls deal with the doubts that will likely plague their thoughts (not that they were wrong, I think they did what they had to do, but we all have to live in those tight, airless places called our minds), and we all have our first post 9-11 demonstration of our recent loss of of innocence.

Exactly - all the armchair Jack Ryans and James Bonds who think otherwise are living in a video game. Cops, firefighters, doctors, military personnel, nurses - these people see horrible things, and have to make even more horrible choices about who lives and who dies, and not one of them, unless they are a complete psychopath, knows how they will react when they have to deal with such things.

Even hardened veteran soldiers, who may have killed several times, have been known to "fall apart" for lack of a better term, on their next mission. Or turn to the bottle or pills for what they've had to do.

She shot someone in the leg, who lived, and was emotionally unable to continue.

That means she was never fit for duty, period.

Ustwo... the point is that noone could know that until she took the shot.

I won't dispute that going forward she isn't fit for the job.

So all the cops and firefighters who cracked after the Twin Towers fell were never fit for duty either, I guess. They lived, what have they got cry about? Shouldn't have been wearing the uniform at all. What a bunch of wimps they were.

:thumbsup:

Are you seroiusly comparing a terrorist attack that killed nearly 3000 people the same as shooting a person who's threatening to bomb a plane?

:confused:

No he is comparing them to someone who shot someone in the leg (and they lived).

Kumasan - Good to see you around buddy!

As for the punishment aspect, I sort of disagree. It was death as a consequence of actions... that seems like punishment to me. And correct punishment in this case. He may have been out of his right mind, but that doesn't really mean much to me. Mental illness is of no fault to the victim, usually... but murderers and rapists are mentally ill in many respects as well, that fact doesn't make me feel badly for them. Maybe he WAS a violent loon that had planned to have a bomb in his bag and just forgot it at home. Nobody knows... no sense crying over spilt milk, so to speak. Whether or not he meant intentional harm is irrelevant in this case.

In my Law Enforcement Administration class, we discussed exactly this issue. Law enforcement officers of all types (federal, state, local, military) are trained to shoot to kill. If it gets to the situation whey they draw their firearm, they intend to use it to kill someone. They are not trained to shoot to wound, trained to shoot guns out of people's hands, or anything else.

I think the only people trained with weapons that ARE trained to wound are infantry. Realistically, a dead man takes one man out of battle. An injured man takes 2 or 3 out of combat. But yes, otherwise, shoot to kill is the lesson learned.

Well plus they shoot for the high percentage areas, namely the torso.

I'm not sure why you say this. OCD very rarely manifests itself in outwardly hostile activity...even if it can look very "odd" to outsiders.

Bipolar disorder ranges in severity...some of my friends have it, and study at university, lead normal lives, and work around the side effects of the medication they need. Some folks i know are more or less permentantly disabled by it.

Clearly, this man was not ready for that kind of stress. But it's not a blanket thing where "crazy people shouldn't fly." I've been pretty ill before, locked wards and all that. I have around 20,000 in air miles logged so far this year...and i'm probably going to end up with a silver elite card next year. I always carry emergency medication (xanax or equivalent) in the event that i need it. knowing your personal limits is the key...most of the time, persons with mental illness are living pretty normal lives. the real shame is that trying to push for that normalcy can have tragic consequences in some situations.

I'm comparing one person doing a tough job with another (group of people) doing a tough job. Both are traumatic situations - firefighters, for example, die all the time when buildings go on fire and fall on them. It is a basic component of the job. You should be able to "handle it" no? Whether one dies, 6 die or 1000 die. But hundreds quit, went on leave, or ended up on pills after not only 9/11 but many other tragic situations. They were never unworthy of the job, as some here contend. You don't know until it happens.

As one of the few people here to have, for several years, carried a gun on the job, I can honestly say I think i would have dealt with it OK, but I don't know for sure, especially if I had had to shoot someone, as the marshall did, who at the end of the day was not an actual threat and who may have been out of his head. Thankfully, I never had to find out.

But I'm sure all the computer drivers here know what bad-ass, stone-cold killers they are. I'm surprised they aren't all in the CIA or something, capping bin Laden and Al-Zaqari all day long.

Actually, in general, you are not trained to "shoot to kill" unless you are a sniper or special forces or in a very specific situation (bomber with finger on trigger). Most cops are simply trained to aim for center body mass - the torso, the largest target available. Double tap, and if he keeps moving, keep shooting. The usual result is, indeed, a dead suspect, but shoot to kill is not the usual description.

I think the Air Marshal made a good call. After everything that has come to pass as far as security in the airports, you should be held completely liable for everything you do.

You say bomb, you get shot.

Martinguerre, I say what I said about OCD sufferers not because they are prone to violence, but prone to STRESS. Such as when the announcement is made to put tray tables and seatbacks up and ONE person doesn't.

Don't you realize the plane can't land until that seatback is up?

Welcome to my world.

poppinjay...that actually makes a whole lot more sense now. thank you.

Not to needlessly argue semantics, but that is shooting to kill. In fact, that's part of the "use of force continuum" - deadly force with a firearm. There is no non-deadly force with a firearm element, because firearms deal with deadly force (which may or may not cause death). The intent is to kill or otherwise completely and totally incapacitate the subject. That doesn't mean if he's on the ground, in a pile of blood, you walk up and put a bullet in his head to finish the job - just that you're intending to kill him.

Time Magazine has released a story with a different take

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...138965,00.html

Just a thought....
Could this incident have something to do with
the 911 comission report being released
a few days back, giving homeland security a failing grade?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120500097.html

No. You say bomb, you get arrested.

You say bomb and run or reach for your bag when you've been told to stop... you get shot.



I know a guy that made a joke about hijacking a plane while waiting in line (this was in the 80s)... he was arrested.

i think he did it purposely to die. i'm wondering how many suicide attempts he had before this.

out of the big three, depression, schizophrenia and bipolar, bipolar are one of the most likely to go off of their meds because mania feels good, better than normal human and especially on meds with the horrible side effects. But it can swing very hard the other way. gravity is still in effect, what goes up may come down very very hard. I think it may have swung on him, he couldn't see out of the depressive mood he was in, that it would pass like all moods do, and he went to the extreme. I'm not sure if it was an impulse suicide when his mood swung or if he planned this death.

i think the air marshall that shot him will regret it very much if he ever gets mental illness training especially. Because some people use others to kill themselves.

Just really really feel badly for all involved with this.

I heard about this, and I wanna know exactly what he was shot with, caliber, bullet weight, brand, where he was hit and how man shots dropped him, and how long it took him to die.


in case this is unclear, I really dont think it was a bad thing that he was shot, unless what time is reportijng is true, and he never mentioned anything about a bomb.

does anyone have a pic of this guy, unless he at least LOOKS like hes of middle eastern descent, well, lets just say this, I feel that people who fit the physical description of terrorists should be the ones who get the most wayward eyes, our society says profiling like that is wrong, but whatever.

Before I go into this, let me preface my comments by saying that I fully back the actions of the Air Marshall. He did what needed to be done.

Punishment implies that the person being punished learns from his actions. In an action like killing this individual, there is no learning (unless you believe in reincarnation)...just the action itself.

Unless the wife was being punished?

I may prove myself wrong with this, but....

From M-W:

Main Entry: pun·ish·ment
Pronunciation: 'p&-nish-m&nt
Function: noun
1 : the act of punishing
2 a : suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution b : a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial procedure
3 : severe, rough, or disastrous treatment

I guess according to that, punishment is more retribution...but was the man killed for retribution, or to protect?

I still think this is a good question........ yes I know bombers have to be stopped on the instant and not even have a minor chance of "pulling the trigger" on the bomb, but....you can't help but wonder.

I think it was justified and it's unfortunate for everyone involved that it turned out that the guy was just mentally unwell. But some situations are clearly no-win. The Marshal had no choice.

while I do agree that the majority of people are of Middle Eastern, Indonesian Muslims do not look like Middle Easterns except for the way they dress.

and now you have to add people like the Belguim born lady... she looks nothing like Middle Eastern.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...hetiq/vert.jpg