TIME.com: Eyewitness: “I Never Heard the Word ‘Bomb'” — Page 1 — I think it would be better if the passengers took matters into their own hands rather than have these trigger happy Marshalls. After all, it was passengers, not Marshalls, who stopped the original shoe bomber. These Marshalls seem jumpy. Now they won’t let you off the plane? They threaten all the passengers? This story needs better reporting. Did the guy say he had a bomb or not? And why would he say that? Because he’s bipolar doesn’t mean he’s stupid. This story is fishy and the reporting is dying fast.
Of course everyone defends this action since it’s better to be safe than sorry. With that logic they should have just shot all the passengers.
McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. “I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody’s neck,” he says. “I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.
“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.”
I thought these guys were supposed to be protecting the public. Is putting a shotgun to a normal passengers head a good policy? Did McAlhany look like an Arab terrorists? I doubt it. And how is it possible for a bomb to get on in the first place if the security is so tight?
Well he could have said bomb while he ran down the runway. But if he didn’t that is a lot like when they killed that guy in Britain.
“I don’t know why he was afraid for his life, what with 4 guys shouting at him with guns”
Who knows.
Don’t know about bombs, but I would guess guns and other weapons could get on planes pretty easily. If someone’s running towards the front of the plane, the marshals are right to shoot, and more importantly let everyone know that they will shoot.
John an old friends wife is bipolar. When she is on her lithium she is stable, but she would stop taking it. It’s not a pleasant drug, and she would cycle fast to a manic state. She was unpredictable and prone to violence in this state. She tried to kill him once in a manic phase, but was so far out of it she had jammed a magazine for a 22 caliber pistol in a 45 colt. I don’t know if lethal force was justified, but anyone who has dealt with people in a full blown manic state can tell you they can be unpredictable and violent. I wish to God we had phaser stun guns, but until then people will have to make split second decisions to fire a gun or not. You don’t have time to think, just react. That’s when you hope extensive training will kick it.
Didn’t you just blog last week about the European lady that was brainwashed into being a suicide bomber? Do you think she looked like “an Arab Terrorists[sic]” I realize I’m in the vast minority here, but when the “officials” are sweeping the plane after an apparent threat, I’d rather have some shotguns pointed at everyone (including me!) than a more lackluster approach.
I’d also rather have an official on TV apologizing for pointing a shotgun at the wrong person than having an official on TV apologizing for not aiming it at the right person.
Oh, golly, this can’t be true because Scott Honesty McClellean TOLD us, directly from the White House itself, that the marshals acted properly. And if you can’t believe the Official White House spokesperson, then . . . .
If I were they guy saying that there was no bomb, I would STFU before I get audited or put on a no-fly list. Or maybe they wll just attack his wife. He’s contradicting the Official Story and that simply isn’t allowed.
And before you ask, the brown in his terrorist skin had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Just ask Scottie.
Hey – I don’t know about you, but I completely understand. Here’s the thing: In today’s world, ANYONE can be a terrorist. And these guys ARE here to protect the public. So this guy just got up, started acting crazy, and got shot. Adreniline is pumping, and, the marshals, doing what they are TRAINED to do are trying to contain the situation. I’m sure in a manual somewhere it says to get control of the sitiuation by limiting communications, electronic or otherwise. Did any one consider that this incident of the dude running could be a distraction? Perhaps a phone call from the plane could have triggered a bomb in stowage…
People please – this marshals did the right thing. Anyone stupid enough to be talking on their phone during this shoulda got pistol whipped. You’re on a friggen plane people – the rules are a bit different in the friendly skies…
So, you are trusting this guy is telling the truth?
This incident adds to the gorwing body of evidence demonstrating just how the terrorists have won. Our government slipped up on 9/11 and now is in a classical, very large scale overreaction. We are and will continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in activities that have dubious value (other than profits for poilitician’s friends) and sometimes worse consequences than any potential gain as see with the Iraq war. It has given our poiliticians the excuse to strip away constitutional rights from the nation; by the way, I don’t understand why they so badly want to take away our rights. Now we have innocent people being killed out of panic and the other passengers who did nothing at all treated like animals. This is a small glimpse of what a police state is like. Let’s hope the country doesn’t continue down this path. We need creative thinking to handle the terrorist threat without destroying the country in the process.
I think everyone is being totally unrealistic. We want police officers to do their job but we question every aspect of their method. Every time a criminal is shot or injured during an altercation the MSM and liberals abound yell and scream that the police are murdering freaks. I certainly have no problem with investigating incidents when deadly force is used. Certainly police officers are human and can make mistakes. However if this guy did do something then all of you would be up in arms about how the police didn’t do enough. You can’t have it both ways. If we continually berate and automatically assume police officers are guilty. Soon they will stop reacting and then what? We can’t have them second-guessing every action we need them to rely on their training to guide their actions. Is more and constant training required and I say yes. Read “Blink” and you will understand.
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.
He was not “pistol-whipped”. He did not get a rifle-butt to the head.
Add my vote to the side which says that particular “official” acted appropriately.
One of the “lessons of 9/11” is that some passengers may be working as a team to carry-out a terrorist act.
Is putting a shotgun to a normal passengers head a good policy?
If you have developed a fool-proof “normal passenger” detector, it would be a boon to airport security – especially in situations like the one described. đ
For some reason, I am reminded of the public furor when the picture of an officer pointing a “machine gun” at Elian Gonzolez hit the front pages. [ note: trigger-finger held clear of the trigger-guard]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/elian/
Max,
I’m sorry, but that excuse is used too often to cover-up police malfeasance. It usually goes like “If he hadn’t run” or “If he just hadn’t moved his hand quite that way”, or if you like “If he hadn’t been on the phone”.
Over the last 20 years there has been a theory called extreme policing, a practice that says if you use extreme force quickly, its safer for everyone concerned. So they hit your home, bang! 10 cops are in your house, knees in you back, your wife slammed into the ground, your dog shot because if attacked a bunch of guys breaking into your house. Then when its the wrong place, no sorry, just a bunch of cop machismo.
Now this being said, I think that the original set of marshals, given the situation, had to do what they did. From what I saw on Headline news and CNBC, someone on the place said he had a bomb as he started running up the plane aisle. Second, if he was bipolar, why not tell the attendant? I’m diabetic, once I started crashing while we were approaching landing. I told the attendant, to see if she might have something I might eat, she didn’t, but she sat me in front and had someone there to help me when we landed. This man and his wife had the same responsibility as I see it. At least his wife did being the stable one.
Dvorak- is it me or are you always looking at a way to blame ‘The Man” for people being stupid? This guy was clearly wacko- but unfortunatly the air marshal did not hav ethe time to sit down and give him a psych test, he was too busy making sure this guy did not have a bomb, and kill everydown on the plane or in the terminal. If you are anywhere near a airplane/airport, and you are stupid enough to do anything that would make you seem a threat- then you must accept the consequences. He broke the law, he was asked to stop, to not touch the bag several time, he didn’t he got shot. Every action has a equal and oppisite reacation. This reaction was a buttet.
It’s you.
Well I’ll give it to you John, there are now 7 passengers that say they never heard the word bomb.
Unfortunently the poor guy was just deathly afraid of being on the plane and freaked out.
This is how you dismantle a democracy anyway. You get the people to believe in some kind of boogy men (like terrorists) and then you promise people to protect them if they give up their civil liberties (i.e. point guns at unarmed civilians and shoot first, ask questions, or not, later). There is no terrorist threat. Every year drunk drivers kill ten times as many people as died in 9/11 yet no one seems to eager to have cops shooting drunk drivers on the spot. One in three women will be sexually assaulted in this country in their lifetime yet there’s no war on that either. No one cares. And statistically speaking your most likely going to be mudered (if you are) by someone you know, a family member, than anyone, so I guess we should adopt shoot first mentalities in our homes as well. The truth is your airline pilot is more likely to show up drunk and crash the plane than you are to be killed by a terrorist, yet we’re ready and willing to hand out liscences to kil to trigger happy air-marshalls. The 9/11 hijackers used box cutters to take over the airplane, and I’d rather go up against them bare-handed than have a shotgun pointed at the back of my head just because.
This is classic government not letting us take care of ourselves. We took down a plane on 9/11 when the passengers knew what was at stake, and we took out the shoe-bomber. Before 9/11 there was a terrorist who was beaten to death by the passsengers on a non-American flight. But now our government can do anything they want as long as they put a boogy-man terrorist behind it.
See, what gets me is that his wife was running down the isle screaming that her husband was bipolar and hasn’t taken his medication.
I cannot imagine the terror of seeing someone you love have a medical need, and get shot and killed for it.
Yeah, he picked a bad time to freak out. Absolutely. But he was sick. Epeleptics don’t choose when they have a seizure.
I find it difficult to believe that it was not appropriate to give him the benefit of the doubt, when someone was screaming about his illness. And if you must shoot him, as people say that they must, can you not debilitate without killing?
And yes, I’m bipolar. But undersand, this could happen to anyone.
Told ya so. In the other article:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=3496#comments
Comment #8 I predicted that the cops made up the “I got a bomb” story because they shot a guy and then they had to justify it. So – what do you need to justify it? You need to claim he had a bomb and he was acting like he was going to explode it.
I see this same pattern all the time. The cops shoot someone and then they retroactively say that he said he had a gun then he was reaching for something. You see videos of cop with people in handcuffs on the ground and they are turturing the guy with a tazer and they will still lies about it.
What happened was the guy smarted off to the air marshals who decided to shoot him because they knew they could get away with it.
Marc Perkel
While the facts in this case seem to show the course of events in the light of terrorism, I think it begs the question of human tragedy. Here you have accounts by neighbors that this was a quiet soft spoken guy whose neighbors didn’t know of his medical condition. It is not like they should either. Seems like he would be taking his meds pretty regular to carry off that impression. Many people on the bi-poler drugs while rational tell you it is more productive for them, but that the drug makes them feel unreal. There are reasons people go off the drugs. Why was this guy off his meds really? Some people get tired of being plateaued and while rational live a life they do not want to be living. They care enough not to want their problems exposed to a world that will treat them as handicapped, or embarrass them for a failing not of their own making. The hidden hardships can become too much. Some of these drugs course of action can be timed down to the minute. This guy seemed like he knew how to use his meds if he could create the general impression of a quiet soft spoken guy.
Rationally you can count on anti-terrorist scenarios. If you keep your mouth shut at at the right time and you always know what time it is, it will be anybodies guess if you commit the perfect suicide.
I never realized it was a shotgun they kept on the plane. It seems kinda dumb, due to the fact that it could scatter instead of just hitting the targert. I thought they where only hand guns. But I agree that official acted wrongly, and pruely on a hunch. And why couldnt he be stunned or nocked out, why did he have to be killed, I mean they where on the ground after all.
To all the apologists
1) It is not illegal to talk on a cell phone on an airplane UNLESS specifically stated it is not allowed by the Airline.
2) It is not a crime to ânot assume the positionâ. While you must submit to the Police if arrested, NOT SO if you are not under arrest and a mere bystander. Of coarse, this would not apply if you are fleeing a crime scene.
3) In this case, the man was having an obvious panic attack. He was not on the plane. His wife was shouting that he was mental ill. Where was the need for lethal force?
4) If the Marshals shot to kill without any comprehension of the situation then they are legally culpable for this man’s death. Self Defense only works where there is an imminent danger to someone’s life. It does not include the words âifâ, âmightâ, âcouldâ, âmayâ or âpossibleâ. Just âfollowing ordersâ is not an approved defense, starting with the Nurmemburg Trials. Because someone didn’t follow an order is not a justifiable action for homicide either.
5) A Terrorist does not advertise that he has a bomb. To do so would be self-defeating to his purpose of inflicting as much death and destruction as possible.
6) The Elian Gonzalas case where the black hooded agent is carrying a machine gun is a good example of Police overkill. If one agent accidentally fired his weapon then many people could have died. While there was no resistance, there were several assaults committed by the agents.
7) If the BOMB word was used, then why hasn’t any passengers come forward saying they heard it?
BASTARD! That’s my render! You stole it from my fucking mod team! BOOOOOO!!!!