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"MIAMI - An agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday after he bolted frantically from a jetliner that was boarding for take off, officials said. No bomb was found.......It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at a passenger or suspect, he said. A witness said that the man frantically ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757 and that a woman with him said he was mentally ill."
Being a law enforcement officer has got to be one of the most stressful jobs I could imagine. Those protectors of freedom including those in the Federal Air Marshal Service, military personnel, and those who are fighting the war on terror are required to make split second decisions. They cannot afford to second guess thier actions. I just hope the mainstream press, criminal liberties unions, and other social conscience organizations do not prosecute this Air Marshall in the press for what he did. MSNBC put up a subtle header link to their story :" • Air marshal guns down passenger "
Just remember the shooting in the line of duty controversy that plagued the Brit terror squad when they shot the fellow in the train station:
http://www.lineofduty.com/blotterstory.asp?StoryID=77949
The Air Marshall involved in the shooting was doing his job. He did not wake up this morning and make a decision that he was going to shoot someone. He woke up this morning knowing that he was to protect the flying public to the best of his ability. That Air Marshal will need a good support group to get through this difficult time of his career. Depression will set in a matter of a days as it sinks in. Linked is an excellent article that shares the anguish of shooting someone in the line of duty:
http://www.tearsofacop.com/police/articles/dateline.html
We have to bring this uncomfortable topic up in defense of Federal Air Marshals, military personnel, and those involved in the war on terror. Leftists have a tendacy to demonize authority figures who are doing their job to serve and protect.
If Rigoberto Alpizar was bipolar and did not take his medication as alleged, it was not the Air Marshal's fault. He had to make an extremely difficult decision in split second timing. Suppose the Air Marshal was wrong and a terrorist blew up an airplane or took hostages to kill or injure, the leftists would be crying bloody murder. Or, if Alpizar did have an explosive device and detonated it in the terminal. We would never hear the end of it. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't"
Leftists and other social change engineers’ outrage have not yet surfaced. But judging by some of the headlines (MSNBC), some newspapers may be moving that way. And, the criminal liberties union has not yet figured out who to sue. Mark my word in days to come, we will hear about it.
This sounds pessimist, but, leftists and other socialist wackos have a tendency to spin anything into their campaign of hate. If they could get mileage out of this incident and slam the adminstration, they will. Perhaps this is part of the Christmas blues one feels because leftists are also trying to take Christ out of Christmas, change the words to Silent Night, or other leftist causes that seem to be hitting the press right now. George Orwell's book, 1984, said that the way to change social structure was to the change words "newspeak". If one controls the words, one will eventually control ideas and beliefs. Folks that is called marginalizing. Leftists marginalize about everything outside their sphere of their narrow liberal tolerance beliefs. Law enforcement, military, and authority figures are thier targets.
Sorry for the transgression, back to the original point; Our thoughts and prayers should be with the Air Marshal this evening. It is unfortunate for Mrs Alpizar's loss. Perhaps if she had encouraged Mr. Alpizar to take his medication or gotten him medical assistance before they got on the plane this would not have happened.
Technorati tags: Air Marshal, Alpizar, bias,Bipolar, George Orwell, 1984, journalists, Opinion
Cross-posted: Knickerbocker News, The Bos'un at MSN
6 comments:
Sometimes things happen, and turn out bad. And no one should be held at fault.
Like you said, the Air Marshall did his job. The irresponsible course of action, would have been if the Air Marshall hadn't taken decisive action at the critical moment.
I see this as similar to George Bush's decision to go to war. The irresponsible thing for a sitting President would have been to not take aggressive steps to remove Saddam, based upon the available intelligence, which we now, in hindsight, know was flawed. In a nuclear age, you cannot wait until the threat is imminent; because by then, it is too late.
If anyone is responsible for his own demise it is the victim; if anyone is to be blamed for the war in Iraq, Saddam only needs look in the mirror to realize that he brought this on himself.
Wordsmith, As usual you put it very well. I certainly hope that Air Marshal will be ok. Did you go to the link about the mental anguish a law enforcement officer goes through after a shooting?
Also another thing I am concerned about is already showing in MSNBC when they changed the lead in link to, "• Air marshal guns down passenger "
Orwell discussed this play of words in his book, 1984. Here is part of the introduction Orwell's book ( I linked it in my op-ed):
Orwell had been reading Zamyatin's novel, "We", whose vision of an anti-Utopia was of special interest when he was planning his own, but many of the themes of Nineteen Eighty-Four were drawn from his own concerns and experiences. During the Spanish Civil War he had seen for himself evidence of the falsification of news and the invention of false news, and he later described in an essay how " I saw history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened, according to the party ; this kind of thing is frightening to me. (kind like what MSM does to us now.) If a leader says of such-and-such an event that it never happened - well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five -well, two and two are five. "
Another major concern was the way in which language was being twisted and corrupted for political ends. In an essay entitled " Why I Write ", written in 1946, he commented : " To write in plain vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox ", and one of the themes running through Nineteen Eighty-Four is the way in which the State uses language to further political control over the people who speak it. His alarm and disgust at the way some political writers of his time (particularly those who supported and defended Stalin's policies and actions) distorted language in their attempts to justify what Orwell regarded as unjustifiable led him, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, to invent the next logical step for a language twisted and corrupted for political ends: Newspeak.
Well, the leftists use it to promote thier agenda and besmerch our President.
Thanks for your comments.
Hey Anonymous,
Watch your language, please. We have several clues. We participate, how about you? What is your rank?
No? Oh, then I guess you stay silent...no. That is how your side plays that game. We do not.
You are entitled your beliefs and ideas, and you are entitled to share them here. I am just hoping that we could agree to disagree in a more civil manner.
Dear Bos'un,
Great post. The lady was on the plane while the man was outside the plane. She did not yell to them. She only said this afterward during questioning. People should wait to get the facts in cases such as these.
I suppose that could also apply to us. We are just so used to "everyone" jumping to the criminal's defense, it is a heart-jerk response in which we have become accustomed.
No matter. I still believe the 2 Marshalls were correct, until further notice. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guily?
Frankly, it is strange how many of you people are quick to defend the Marshal.
Guess he was *doing* his job... even though the mans wife yelled out he hadn't taken his medication yet....
If someone yelled that out to me, i would certainly take that into account, before shooting someone...dead.
Yes he will need counselling probably to help him..i guess that's better than the other blokes deal....
As For Iraq...Get A Clue
Anonymous: Opposing opinions are encouraged on this Blog. However profanities are not. Your profanity was deleted and your comment was reposted.
Respectfully, Bosun
Bos'un,
Looks like the MSNBC title was updated again to: "Marshals defend Miami airport shooting"
I'd like to address "anonymous":
Frankly, it is strange how many of you people are quick to defend the Marshal.
Even more amazing how often so many of you on the left are quick to jump all over law enforcement and our soldiers, never giving them the benefit of the doubt, but already condemning them...that somehow they must be at fault because the suspect was black, because multiple bullets were fired, etc.
Guess he was *doing* his job... even though the mans wife yelled out he hadn't taken his medication yet....
If someone yelled that out to me, i would certainly take that into account, before shooting someone...dead.
This, coming from an armchair responder who wasn't there.
I don't know how often you've been put into a situation where in real time, you are put into a situation where split-second decisions with zero-time for second-guessing is the difference between life and death.
I've been in situations where you don't have time to think; just rely on training to kick in to do what needs doing. But I've never been in a situation where the lives of many are dependant entirely upon the course of action you take.
It is easy for you to Monday morning quarterback this, when it turns out there was no bomb. But what tune would you be harping if there had been?
Your comment regarding the woman's wife shouting about meds....get real! The man threatened he had a bomb! You think the Air Marshals had the luxury of researching his medical records? His bipolar condition doesn't excuse the circumstance he placed everyone, including himself and the Air Marshal, in. It's tragic, but inaction and indecisiveness would have resulted in the Air Marshal being irresponsible in carrying out what he has been trained to do. I'm going to post about this, because I heard Katie Couric on the Today Show pose a couple of absolutely ridiculous questions.
If this were a terrorist attack, btw, the woman crying about meds could well be a decoy and a distraction right up until the moment the bomb detonates. in Israel, recently, a guard tackled a suspect instead of shooting him. The end result? *Kaboom*. That's what you get for second-guessing and seeking a more "humane" solution to an untenable situation.
As For Iraq...Get A Clue
You first. Thanks for playing.
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