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Air Marshal Shoots Passenger


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NYTimes

 

Law enforcement officials surrounded an American Airlines jet where a passenger was shot on the jetway.

The plane, American Airlines Flight 924, a Boeing 757, which was traveling from Medellin, Colombia, to Orlando, Fla., had stopped off as scheduled at Miami International Airport, where the incident took place. The man's identity was not immediately known. The Associated Press reported that he had been killed.

 

A spokesman for American Airlines, John Hotard, said that after the plane landed on the flight from Medellin, a federal air marshal on board heard "a man creating a disturbance on the jet bridge" leading to the terminal. The marshal got off the plane and shot the man during a confrontation, Mr. Hotard said. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Brian Doyle, the suspect is a 44-year-old male American citizen. He would not confirm whether the suspect is dead.

 

"A male aboard flight 924 from Medellin to Orlando, stopping in Miami, indicated there was a bomb in his carry-on bag," Mr. Doyle said. He said an air marshals team confronted him while the aircraft was parked at gate D-42.

 

"The passenger immediately left the aircraft through the jetway going toward the terminal," Mr. Doyle said.

 

The team followed the man into the jetway and ordered him to get down to the ground, he said.

 

"He then appeared to be reaching into a carry-on bag and the air marshals proceeded, consistent with their training," Mr. Doyle said. "Shots were fired as the team attempted to subdue the individual. This is the first time that air marshals have used a firearm during a mission since 9/11."

 

According to a witness, The A.P. said, the man appeared to have been accompanied by a woman who ran after him as he bolted from the plane, shouting that the man was mentally ill.

 

The passenger, Mary Gardner, said in an interview on WTVJ in Miami that the man had run down the aisle from the back of the plane. "He was frantic, his arms flailing in the air," she said.

 

Ms. Gardner said he had been trailed by a woman shouting: "My husband! My husband!"

 

Ms. Gardner, according to an A.P. account of the television interview, said she had heard the woman say her husband was bipolar and had not taken his medication.

 

Television images shortly after the shooting showed black-uniformed security forces running across the tarmac near the plane. Medics wheeled an empty stretcher away from the aircraft. The number of passengers who had been aboard the plane and other details were not immediately available.

 

Jamie Clifford, who was getting ready to board another flight from Miami to San Francisco, said she had heard, but did not see, the shooting.

 

"I was at the gate right across from the gate where the shooting occurred. I was waiting for my flight to board and suddenly I heard what I thought were a bunch of cans of soda falling on the floor," she said by telephone. "Then airport officials directed us to move to the far end of the terminal but gave no information as to why. I overheard one of them tell another that shots had been fired."

 

The flight originates daily in Medellin, flies to Miami and then goes on to Orlando. According to the American Airlines Web site, it left Medellin at 9:06 a.m., four minutes ahead of schedule, and landed in Miami at 12:16 p.m., nine minutes ahead of schedule. It was to have left for Orlando at 2:18 p.m., from gate D-42 at Miami International Airport.

 

The procedure on flight 924 is for all passengers to get off at Miami and go through Customs and Immigration before continuing their journey.

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5043135

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how is a person who has only a few seconds to react suppose to know whhether someones joking, serious, or just mentally ill? the longer they wait, the more serious things can get

in hindsight, all actions can have been avoided and seen as tragic, but how would u feel if you just had a second to decide whether someone really did have a bomb or may have been reaching for a weapon. You never know

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Originally posted by Tough Love@Dec 7 2005, 06:52 PM

how is a person who has only a few seconds to react suppose to know whhether someones joking, serious, or just mentally ill? the longer they wait, the more serious things can get

in hindsight, all actions can have been avoided and seen as tragic, but how would u feel if you just had a second to decide whether someone really did have a bomb or may have been reaching for a weapon. You never know

 

 

exactly, you only have seconds to react and during that short time you hold the life of at least one person in your hands and potentially hundreds of others. The last thing you want to do is make a brash, uninformed decision. I, for one, am an advocate of non-lethal weapons being used in situations like this. Those that incapacitate rather than kill. Be a lot less messy, we all could sleep better at night and one less Widow would be mourning her dead Husband.

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dumy i get where your coming from, but in this kind of situation, id rather have something that would kill/subdue someone with 100% certainty, then something that MAY subdue the suspect. It doesnt matter whether they live so we can interogate them. The main concern is the well being of the marshals and the ppl they have to protect. Any other benefits are unimportant for the time being. Any other sort of less-lethal weapon still runs the risk of failing to subdue a suspect. Altho i do agree that these methods are better in some circumstances, in ones such as this, i think killing was the best course of action. You and i dont know how the threat was percieved by the officers and we cannot argue that it wouldve made sense to act differently. i still stand by my argument. I think advocating less lethal methods is good but only when such methods actually show that they work 100% and there is no more risk to using them. You forget, what if a taser fails to fire, fails to subdue the person for whatever reason, KILLS the person cuz theyr on drugs or something else, or what if some other tool doesnt 100% subdue the guy and he still manages to set of his "bomb". In these circumstances, i think a gun was the proper tool.

 

and as for time to think....i think you are making a very brash claim yourself. Not jumping to conclusions? are you kidding? How much thinking can u do in the second it takes someone to pull a gun and kill u, or to push a button to blow shit up. The fact was the guy said he had a BOMB ON THE PLANE and RAN from cops when they told him to stop. he reached into his shit for SOMETHING. This is all the officers knew....to me, having 2-3 seconds to think about my actions would def. lead me to believe that people are in danger. i dont agree that a dicision can become any more informed without putting a large number of ppl's lives in serious jeapordy by standing around and talking to someone who was reaching into their luggage where he SAID HE HAD A BOMB. But again, neither one of us was there, and the officers may or may not have percieved the mans actions as more or less threatening then they sound to us, so you can't scrutinize after the facts from the comfort of your own room, and niether can i.

 

i do agree with less lethal weapons, and with protecting the innocent at all costs, but in this situation, abiding by these beliefs may have resulted in a way more tragic end than this. I could understand these philosophies in a less paniccy and less threatening situation, such as with legislation or some less serious crimes in progress, but this wasn't a very nice scenerio to be acting in any other way.

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Originally posted by Tough Love@Dec 7 2005, 08:18 PM

dumy i get where your coming from, but in this kind of situation, id rather have something that would kill/subdue someone with 100% certainty, then something that MAY subdue the suspect. It doesnt matter whether they live so we can interogate them. The main concern is the well being of the marshals and the ppl they have to protect. Any other benefits are unimportant for the time being. Any other sort of less-lethal weapon still runs the risk of failing to subdue a suspect. Altho i do agree that these methods are better in some circumstances, in ones such as this, i think killing was the best course of action. You and i dont know how the threat was percieved by the officers and we cannot argue that it wouldve made sense to act differently. i still stand by my argument. I think advocating less lethal methods is good but only when such methods actually show that they work 100% and there is no more risk to using them. You forget, what if a taser fails to fire, fails to subdue the person for whatever reason, KILLS the person cuz theyr on drugs or something else, or what if some other tool doesnt 100% subdue the guy and he still manages to set of his "bomb". In these circumstances, i think a gun was the proper tool.

 

and as for time to think....i think you are making a very brash claim yourself. Not jumping to conclusions? are you kidding? How much thinking can u do in the second it takes someone to pull a gun and kill u, or to push a button to blow shit up. The fact was the guy said he had a BOMB ON THE PLANE and RAN from cops when they told him to stop. he reached into his shit for SOMETHING. This is all the officers knew....to me, having 2-3 seconds to think about my actions would def. lead me to believe that people are in danger. i dont agree that a dicision can become any more informed without putting a large number of ppl's lives in serious jeapordy by standing around and talking to someone who was reaching into their luggage where he SAID HE HAD A BOMB. But again, neither one of us was there, and the officers may or may not have percieved the mans actions as more or less threatening then they sound to us, so you can't scrutinize after the facts from the comfort of your own room, and niether can i.

 

i do agree with less lethal weapons, and with protecting the innocent at all costs, but in this situation, abiding by these beliefs may have resulted in a way more tragic end than this. I could understand these philosophies in a less paniccy and less threatening situation, such as with legislation or some less serious crimes in progress, but this wasn't a very nice scenerio to be acting in any other way.

 

 

ok, in answer to your response..you make a good point. Why not be 100% sure you're going to take out the supsect, and use a lethal firearm to kill? Well, it depends on your stance on how valuable that person's life is versus the hundreds of others he may be endangering. If you feel like those others outweigh the one, then you're totally justified but if your mission statement is to preserve all life whenever possible, thats when it gets tricky. I feel like unless you are a %100 percent sure that you've got the right guy than you shouldn't use a lethal firearm, especially when their are extraneous circumstances such as a screaming wife exclaiming "My Husband is mentally disabled". Also in regards to your "time to think" statement I never said that the Marshall actually had time to make an accurate assessment of the situation which I feels bolsters my case so much more as to why non-lethal weapons should be used, so that the suspect can be subdued until an informed asseessment of the situation CAN be made, you feel me? Rubber bullets incapacitate just as quickly as the real ones, and to my knowledge (from the cops I've asked about this, also my GF's aunt and uncle make non lethal weapons for the US government) Guns that shoot rubber bullets misfire about as often as those that do not, not more so. Also their are several options when it comes to non-lethal weapons that can be used and if you do a little research on the topic you will see that non-lethal weapons are utilized by the US in combat situations all the time ie: Afghanistan and Iraq. I wholeheatedly understand your justification in killing someone to make sure the job gets done as opposed to subdueing them "the lives of the many outweigh the few" etc etc. But from a moral standpoint, I just don't feel this is "right" especially in a situation where an innocent man lost his life at the hands of someone who was supposed to be serving and protecting EVERY citizen on that Plane. Maybe you're right...maybe in that situation there isn't a better way, but I'd damn sure like options to be available and less lives lost..period.

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Guest imported_Tesseract

Cmon, that poor brazilian kid got shot in the head in london tube for just running to catch the fuckin train or something. didnt even crack a joke.

 

Worst thing about terrorism is turning everybody else into freak out pansies

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Originally posted by destroya@Dec 7 2005, 05:34 PM

better safe than sorry.

 

WORD THE FUCK UP! IF I WAS AN AIR MARSHALL, FIRST NIGGA GET UP TO TAKE A PISS CATCHES A STACK IN THE BACK, FUCK THAT. ESPECIALLY IF NIGGA GOT A LONG ASS BEARD AND IF YOU ROCKING A TURBAN YOU GETTIN YOUR WIG BLOWN OFF AS SOON AS YOU STEP ON THE AIRCRAFT. NO FUNNY SHIT ON PLANES FOR 2G6, I DONT WANNA SEE NO IPODS, NO WIRES, NOTHIN B, WATCH "FEVER PITCH" IN SILENCE NIGGA. ITS BIN LADENS FAULT. WRITE HIM AN EMAIL NIGGA.

 

 

 

 

MEROOOOO

JOSE CUERVO

NO GRAND MARNIER

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