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 an American Airlines jet that was boarding for takeoff at Miami International Airport, officials said. No bomb was found.
It was the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, said Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle. Another federal official said there was no apparent link to terrorism.
According to a witness, the passenger ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757, flailing his arms, while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.
The passenger, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, “uttered threatening words that included a sentence to the effect that he had a bomb,” said James Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals field office in Miami. He was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft.
Doyle said the marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the jetway, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag.
Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, had arrived earlier in the day from Quito, Ecuador, and Flight 924 was en route to Orlando, near his home in Maitland, Fla. A neighbor of the Alpizars who said he had been asked to watch the couple’s home said they had been on a missionary trip to Peru.
Relatives were stunned. “We’re all still in shock. We’re just speechless,” a sister-in-law, Kelley Buechner, said by phone from her home in Milwaukee.
The shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m. as Flight 924 was about to take off for Orlando with the man and 119 other passengers and crew, American spokesman Tim Wagner said.
After the shooting, investigators spread passengers’ bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives, and bomb-squad members blew up at least two bags. No bomb was found, Bauer said.
The concourse where the shooting took place was shut down for a half-hour, but the rest of the airport continued operating.
Mike Irizarry, a passenger shown on CNN, said that Alpizar “just kept saying, ‘I got to get off, I got to get off.”‘
Passenger Mary Gardner told WTVJ-TV in Miami that she heard four to five shots fired. Afterward, police boarded the plane and told the passengers to put their hands on their heads, Gardner said.
“It was quite scary,” she said via cellphone. “They wouldn’t let you move.”
