Trigger-happy
On July 22nd, Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian electrician living in London, put on a light denim jacker, left his flat, entered the Stockwell Underground station, bought a newspaper, and calmly descended the escalator to the platform. Apparently, Mr. Menezes looked similar to a terrorist suspect who lived in the same apartment building. Police agents who had staked out the building followed Mr. Menezes into the tube station, pinned him to the ground, and shot him eleven times. Then the London police lied to the public and to the press. The police claimed that Mr. Menezes wore a bulging winter jacket, acted suspiciously, jumped the ticket barrier, and ran down the escalator. Eventually the truth came out, and now the killers may be facing criminal charges.
On December 7th, Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old US citizen suffering from bipolar disorder, suffered a panic attack on American Airlines flight 924 parked in Miami International Airport. Mr. Alpizar ran down the aisle and tried to leave the airplane. He was chased down and shot by armed air marshals (several thousand of whom have been patroling US and US-bound flights ever since 9/11). The official story was that Mr. Alpizar shouted “I have a bomb” and refused to obey the marshals’ orders. Naturally, I suspected the air marshals and the TSA were lying, just like their British counterparts 5 months earlier. Apparently, my suspicions were justified. The authorities lied. Mr. Alpizar did not use the word “bomb”. The air marshals did not identify themselves as law enforcement agents (some passengers thought the marshals were terrorists!), so Mr. Alpizar had no good reason to obey their instructions. Nevertheless, he tried to get down on the ground, but his big fanny pack prevented him. When he tried to move the fanny pack to the side, he was shot five times.
Reaching for one’s fanny pack — especially to obey police instructions — does not appear to be a legitimately threatening move to anyone except to an insane paranoid air marshal or a Los Angeles cop. If you think otherwise — consider the case of Sister Dorothy, who was killed by Brazilian ranchers. The ranchers claimed to have shot in self-defense, since the nun was reaching inside her bag (her bag contained a bible). In fact, the ranchers are lying through their teeth (they killed Sister Dorothy because she was preventing the ranchers from illegally cutting down the rainforest). In my opinion, any police officer who uses the “reaching inside a bag” argument for killing someone is as guilty of murder as the Brazilian ranchers are…
As a practical matter, shooting a terrorist can be the worst thing an air marshal could do. You see, real, Hamas-style suicide bombers often have a “dead-man’s switch”. If you kill them, they explode.
So what should the air marshals have done? The same thing that the passengers and crew of a December 11th Northwestern flight did to an aggressive passenger: they physically restrained him and used plastic handcuffs. Had an air marshal been on that flight, the man would certainly be dead, and the plane might never have made it to Honolulu (due to an air marshal’s bullet hitting a critical wire or fuel line).
One must ask the question whether overzealous law-enforcement officers are more dangerous than terrorists. Especially since trigger-happy air marshals are coming to subways and buses near you.