Eyewitnesses refute official story in fatal shooting of passenger at Miami airport

Alpizar was shot dead on Wednesday by air marshals in the jetway of AA Flight 757 after exiting the aircraft. Law enforcement agents blew up Alpizar’s luggage on the tarmac, confirming he was carrying no explosives or other weapons.

The official version of events, promoted by the Bush administration and the media in the immediate aftermath, is that this state killing of an innocent man was justified by the “war on terror.” The central assertion to back up this claim is that Alpizar said he had a bomb, and that this posed a terrorist threat. Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, explicitly told the press that Alpizar had “run up and down the aisle yelling, ‘I have a bomb in my bag.’ ”

However, no witnesses—including from among the more than 100 passengers and crew members on board the flight—have come forward publicly to back up this allegation. Instead, numerous passengers have directly contradicted it, even after hours of interrogation and prodding by police authorities in the wake of the shooting.

Witnesses to the killing relate that the extremely agitated man attempted to get off the flight, followed by his wife, who called out that her husband was sick and had not taken his medication. Alpizar’s wife, Anne Buechner, has since said that her husband suffered from bipolar disorder (or manic depression) and had not recently taken his medication.

Passenger Alan Tirpak, 31, who was seated near the front of the aircraft, told the New York Daily News, “He didn’t say anything as far as I could hear.” Tirpak said he heard the man’s wife yelling to the marshals that he was “very sick,” before hearing shots ring out outside the plane’s door.

Another passenger, Mary Gardner, told Associated Press, “I did not hear him say that he had a bomb.” She also said she heard Mrs. Buechner say of her husband, “He’s bipolar. He doesn’t have his medicine.”

The Orlando Sentinel interviewed seven passengers who said Alpizar was silent as he bolted past them. “One thought he had taken the wrong flight. Another thought he was going to throw up,” the Sentinel reported.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/miam-d10.shtml