U.S. Federal Air Marshals Kill Man Claiming to have a Bomb

Brave decision by the Air Marshall...who deserves our support and respect....

Tragic circumstances for the deceased and his family...

However, these are testing times which the 'free world' finds itself and we all have a part to play....

I say that as a citizen as well as a law enforcement officer...

i say good job federal marshall .and i say that as a person with mentle illness and a citezen but man what a sad story

Good for them, quick thinking on their feet, seems like they gave him ample warning and he refused to stop, sounds like suicide by cop but you can't blame the cops

Sad that it had to happen and turned out the man had a mental disorder. He might not have been able to control himself if he was indeed bipolar as the news pieces states. Very sad.

That said, beyond a certain point in a situation like that, the Marshals have to do what they've been trained for.

Very sad. :candle:

"Air Marshals are trained to shoot to kill.":thumbsup:

and also this "The air marshals discharged their weapons" when the man failed to comply with them a second time"

HEY xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


edited... regained my sanity

A mentally unstable person, who had no explosives, was shot because he said that he did. Had he been on his meds, he would very likely be alive right now, and possibly could have gone on to live a very normal life. I heard that something like 1-1.5% of Americans suffer from bi-polar disorder, and there is medication for it.

While I find this shooting to be tragic, I do think the actions of the marshals were justified, given the situation. I am glad they were prepared for what appeared to be happening, and would have prevented it.

thats why i dont fly my dad said it wouldt be a good idea to much stress..its sad the wife didnt relaize her hubby wasnt well and post poned there trip

IlluminatingBikr said:

A mentally unstable person, who had no explosives, was shot because he said that he did. Had he been on his meds, he would very likely be alive right now, and possibly could have gone on to live a very normal life. I heard that something like 1-1.5% of Americans suffer from bi-polar disorder, and there is medication for it.

While I find this shooting to be tragic, I do think the actions of the marshals were justified, given the situation. I am glad they were prepared for what appeared to be happening, and would have prevented it.

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That's what I meant to say.

Good grief! This incident will no doubt be compared to the shooting of the Brazilian man in the London Underground this past summer.

My first reaction upon hearing this story was empathy and sorrow for the man's family. My second was, "Good. The security system works." My third was a twinge of guilt for thinking that.

I feel sorry for the Air Marshal too. What would you do in his situation? If the shrieking passenger is mentally ill and you shoot him, you will be castigated by legions of Armchair Air Marshals with 20/20 hindsight for "killing an innocent man in cold blood". If he actually is a suicide bomber and you let him go, hundreds of people could die because of your failure to act.

I wonder if this was an incident of "suicide by cop"?

In this day and age; it is pretty much "shoot first, ask questions later. :shakehead "

Hookd_On_Photons said:

Good grief! This incident will no doubt be compared to the shooting of the Brazilian man in the London Underground this past summer.

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IIRC, with the London incident, some pretty situation-altering information came to light months later. I sure wonder what time will do for this story.

The comparison to the London Underground shooting has already been made, but it seems that it is being handled a bit better, in that the reporters figure that this was regretable but probably unavoidable. Well, at least that's what they were saying an hour ago.

Sad outcome, but I hope the officer who was the shooter can see there probably wasn't a whole lot of choice.

I've been hearing the 'suicide by cop' theory being tossed around on news reports also. Unfortunately we may never know what he was thiking. The only things that can be verified are whether he was suffering from bipolar disorder, and if so, whether he had a prescription for some appropriate meds. I suppose they'll conduct a blood test to see whether such meds were in his system, but even if they find some, how will they know whether it was in a high enough concentration to be effective for his particular degree of (alleged) illness?

I gather that the air marshalls made they best decision they could based on the available information, the (allegedly) stated threats, and the short amount of time that they had to make their decision.

I feel badly for his family, but I also feel badly for the people who had to make the decision to take him out.

I don't really give a crap one way or the other. But if the post 9-11 intelligence can't identify a mentally disturbed person, how are we supposed to catch hijackers? Not that I think we could do that one correctly either.


You use public transportation, you take your life in your own hands.

If you need me I'll be on my roof with an air rifle.

Seems to me that there was no choice for the air marshalls they had no way of knowing one way or the other if his bag contained a bomb or some other weapon. It would have been nice if there had been a taser somewhere around, but even then that might not have worked. So give the limited options availible, one life compared the chance of many I think they made the right choice.

I feel badly for the person's family, but I also feel for the marshall who had to make such a decision. I hope people don't try to fault his/her decision under stress, though I know it will happen. Everything can't all be perfect in this world and some decisions have to be made that in hindsight might and I stress might have been doable in some other way.

That's certainly a shame.

Somebody had mentioned taser, or other non-lethal force.

I have a hunch that if he had meerly been non-compliant, he may have been shocked or maced, but once he went for his bag, which -- by his own account* -- contained a bomb, non-leathal force just wasn't much of an option any more.

Before we criticize the air marshal too much (Shoot first, ask questions later) let's just take a moment and put ourselves in their shoes:

Man running down the aisle claiming to have a bomb in his bag.
Woman running after him screaming "He's mentally ill!"
Man fails to comply with officer commands.
Man reaches for bag.

You've got adrenalin running through your veins, and a split second to make a decision that will affect the lives of hundreds:
He's mentally ill, he probably doesn't have a bomb in there.
or
He's mentally ill, what is he thinking?!

*It's unfortunate that his account was false, especially on account of all the signs and warnings around airports warning you that, well, they're going to take you seriously if you say you have a bomb on your back.

The ari marshall did what he had to do under the circumstances, there is no instantaneous way for him to know exactly who this individual is, especially when he perceives a imminent threat to the safety of hundreds of others. If anything he should be promoted.

One of my coworkers was an air marshal for about a year. I was talking with him yesterday, and I mentioned that it could very well be the most boring job ever created. I guess I was wrong about that.

I also have one of my coworkers who killed a man who charged at him with a knife--probably suicide-by-cop. Frankly, I think that a significant percentage of people shot by police officers are suicidal to some degree.

Police officers have to face some of the most difficult and dangerous ethical choices under the tightest possible time constraints of any occupation. The LAPD SWAT team recently shot and killed a very young girl who was being held as a human shield by her father who was firing a gun at them. If I understand the situation, he had tried to murder his older daughter minutes earlier. Unfortunately, there is often no good choice.

Turbodog wrote:

I don't really give a crap one way or the other. But if the post 9-11 intelligence can't identify a mentally disturbed person, how are we supposed to catch hijackers?

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Just because a person is mentally disturbed doesn't mean there's no chance he could have actually put a bomb onboard the plane. I don't see that the Air Marshals had much choice. Most likely he was just out to end his own life, but there was no way for the Air Marshals to know this for sure.