Word: marshall
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Shortly after Rigoberto Alpizar rushed through the airline cabin clutching a backpack, passenger Mike Beshears saw a man in a Hawaiian shirt bolt out of his First Class seat. The man, who turned out to be a federal air marshal, followed Alpizar toward the jetway. Beshears heard yelling and then a series of shots...
...From his seat in the first row of Coach, Beshears assumed that Alpizar and the marshal were on the jetway, but could not see to the entrance of the plane, which was at a right angle to the main aisle. When he saw the crew running back to the Coach section, Beshears assumed the worst. He was in an exit row and began fumbling to open the emergency door. "I was reaching for the arming device and then somebody said, 'No, get back down. Now!'" Beshears got down on the floor...
...blame the air marshals for what happened, he says. "When the air marshal left the plane, I didn't see a crystal ball in his hand to say what this guy's mental condition was," he says. And it's not Alpizar's fault either, he says. "I firmly believe that if that man had the mental capacity to stop and surrender his bag and cooperate, he'd be alive today...
...According to a witness, Alpizar suddenly ran off of American Airlines Flight 924, which had stopped off in Miami en route from Medellin, Colombia, to Orlando. He was pursued by two air marshals who were aboard the flight while his wife, Anne Buechner, tried to explain that Alpizar was ill and had not taken his medication. "When the incident began and he uttered something to the effect that he had a bomb, the federal air marshals came out of cover," Jim Bauer, special agent in charge of the Miami field office of the Federal Air Marshal Service, told TIME. "They...
...Last year, TIME reporter Sally B. Donnelly was the first journalist allowed to train with air marshal recruits. Read her story here...