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Miami airplane shooting: Washington’s ‘war on terrorism’ comes home
The most chilling aspect of the brutal state killing of Rigoberto Alpizar, the 44-year-old Costa Rican immigrant gunned down while fleeing an American Airlines Boeing 757 in Miami Wednesday, is the utter absence of any statement of remorse by government officials.
Rather than publicly acknowledge that a horror and a tragedy had resulted from the use of lethal force against an unarmed and innocent man, spokesmen for the Bush administration and various state agencies praised those who killed him and virtually celebrated the spilling of blood on American soil in the so-called “global war on terrorism.”
The initial facts that have emerged from the shooting are appalling. Alpizar, a US citizen who left his native country 20 years ago, was returning with his wife from South America, where they had participated in missionary work with her uncle, a Michigan dentist who provides free treatment to the poor.
As the two were boarding a connecting flight in Miami bound for Orlando, Florida, Alpizar became extremely agitated, bolted up the aisle and tried to flee the aircraft. It was then that he was confronted by two undercover air marshals.
Passengers said that his wife was running after him shouting, “My husband is sick, my husband is sick.” Others heard her pleading, saying that he was bipolar and had not taken his medicine. She told them that it was her fault for persuading him to get on the plane.
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, affects an estimated 2 million American adults. It is characterized by severe mood swings that can include provocative or aggressive behavior.
Alpizar’s wife of 20 years, Anne Buechner, is a project director with the Council on Quality and Leadership, a not-for-profit agency that assists people with disabilities and mental illness.
Alpizar fled the aircraft after being confronted by the plainclothes marshals. It was then that passengers heard five or six shots fired. A spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, Dave Adams, told the press that Alpizar had “run up and down the aisle yelling, ‘I have a bomb in my bag,’” CNN reported. Passengers interviewed, however, said that they didn’t hear him say anything.
After the shooting, the marshals claimed that Alpizar had told them that he had a bomb and that they shot him after he failed to obey orders to put the bag down and appeared to reach into it. Given the unsupported claim by the spokesman about Alpizar yelling he had a bomb, this version of events is also suspect.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/shot-d09.shtml
The initial facts that have emerged from the shooting are appalling. Alpizar, a US citizen who left his native country 20 years ago, was returning with his wife from South America, where they had participated in missionary work with her uncle, a Michigan dentist who provides free treatment to the poor.
As the two were boarding a connecting flight in Miami bound for Orlando, Florida, Alpizar became extremely agitated, bolted up the aisle and tried to flee the aircraft. It was then that he was confronted by two undercover air marshals.
Passengers said that his wife was running after him shouting, “My husband is sick, my husband is sick.” Others heard her pleading, saying that he was bipolar and had not taken his medicine. She told them that it was her fault for persuading him to get on the plane.
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, affects an estimated 2 million American adults. It is characterized by severe mood swings that can include provocative or aggressive behavior.
Alpizar’s wife of 20 years, Anne Buechner, is a project director with the Council on Quality and Leadership, a not-for-profit agency that assists people with disabilities and mental illness.
Alpizar fled the aircraft after being confronted by the plainclothes marshals. It was then that passengers heard five or six shots fired. A spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, Dave Adams, told the press that Alpizar had “run up and down the aisle yelling, ‘I have a bomb in my bag,’” CNN reported. Passengers interviewed, however, said that they didn’t hear him say anything.
After the shooting, the marshals claimed that Alpizar had told them that he had a bomb and that they shot him after he failed to obey orders to put the bag down and appeared to reach into it. Given the unsupported claim by the spokesman about Alpizar yelling he had a bomb, this version of events is also suspect.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/shot-d09.shtml
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There is no excuse for US federal marshalls gunning someone down because of a verbal statement made by an obviously emotionally disturbed individual. For many people the airport can be a traumatic experience not to mention the hectic trip to the airport. However i need to remind the authors of this wsws article that depending on the mental health system stereotype of what they term "bipolar disorder" and the pharmaceutical corporation's recommended treatment, (a potentially toxic salt in the form of a petrochemical capsule called Lithium that claims to treat the so named illness), people are treated very differently once diagnosed and labeled "mentally ill" by a psychiatrist.
Lithium toxicity and chemical withdrawal;
In addition to many physical symptoms and potential for kidney and liver damage combined with dehydration, the emotional effects of lithium and lithium withdrawal are often extreme as the initial emotional disturbance pre-medication use. Imagine a heroin addict coming off their physiological addiction. They tremble, quiver and shake, this in result from a chemical withdrawal of the body craving the drug. This is very similar to the effects of withdrawal from Lithium. The toxicity enters the body upon begining the Lithium prescription, then the body craves the Lithium upon withdrawal. Here Lithium and heroin are similar following withdrawal reactions. Not to mention that Lithium is an ineffective band-aid approach that only masks the initial emotional disturbance likely caused by personal reactions to societal factors like classism, racism, poverty and daily interaction with police state oppression..
No doubt that people in this industrial society are suffering from a variety of emotional disturbances. That does not exclude this system of US society from contributing to the problem by coercing people and isolating people. Providing an ineffective and potentially toxic treatment to the societal factors and then gunning someone down for showing verbal signs of emotional disturbance after withdrawal from petrochemical addiction is a combination merger of the police state merging with the psychiatric petrochemical pharmaceutical oppression..
People demand and deserve to be free from both police and psychiatric/pharmaceutical oppression..
Support Coalition International
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
Lithium toxicity and chemical withdrawal;
In addition to many physical symptoms and potential for kidney and liver damage combined with dehydration, the emotional effects of lithium and lithium withdrawal are often extreme as the initial emotional disturbance pre-medication use. Imagine a heroin addict coming off their physiological addiction. They tremble, quiver and shake, this in result from a chemical withdrawal of the body craving the drug. This is very similar to the effects of withdrawal from Lithium. The toxicity enters the body upon begining the Lithium prescription, then the body craves the Lithium upon withdrawal. Here Lithium and heroin are similar following withdrawal reactions. Not to mention that Lithium is an ineffective band-aid approach that only masks the initial emotional disturbance likely caused by personal reactions to societal factors like classism, racism, poverty and daily interaction with police state oppression..
No doubt that people in this industrial society are suffering from a variety of emotional disturbances. That does not exclude this system of US society from contributing to the problem by coercing people and isolating people. Providing an ineffective and potentially toxic treatment to the societal factors and then gunning someone down for showing verbal signs of emotional disturbance after withdrawal from petrochemical addiction is a combination merger of the police state merging with the psychiatric petrochemical pharmaceutical oppression..
People demand and deserve to be free from both police and psychiatric/pharmaceutical oppression..
Support Coalition International
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
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