Rigoberto Alpizar

MIAMI -- A federal air marshal Wednesday shot and killed an agitated American Airlines passenger who allegedly said he had a bomb in his bag at Miami International Airport, the first fatal shooting by an undercover agent since the sky marshals' rapid expansion after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Federal officials said there was no evidence that the passenger, 44-year-old Rigoberto Alpizar, who had relatives in Wisconsin and may have lived in Milwaukee in the 1980s, was a suspected terrorist.

Department of Homeland Security officials said Alpizar ignored two air marshals' orders to get down on the ground and he appeared to be reaching into his bag when one of the marshals fired. No one else was harmed, but officials ordered all passengers off the plane, removed all of the luggage and blew up two bags belonging to Alpizar on the tarmac as a precaution.

"I can tell you he was very proud to be living in America," brother-in-law Bradley Jentsch said in Sheboygan, Wis. "He was very, very proud to become an American citizen and to vote. . . . He loved to read, and he taught himself English by reading."

Alpizar moved to the United States in 1986. The 1987 Milwaukee city directory lists an address for Rigoberto Alpizar in the 1100 block of N. Marshall St.

Alpizar's brother-in-law, Steven Buechner of Milwaukee, said Alpizar, whom friends and relatives called Rigo, was a native of Costa Rica and met his wife - Buechner's sister, Anne - when she was an exchange student there. The couple had been married more than 18 years.

Anne Buechner works for the Council on Quality and Leadership, a national advocacy group for the disabled and mentally ill.

Steven Buechner called Wednesday's shooting "a huge mistake."

"He would never do anything to hurt anyone," he said. "This is something so brand-new to us, like a slap in the face. He was a really great guy who worked hard."

"We're all still in shock. We're just speechless," sister-in-law Kelley Buechner of Milwaukee said.

...Wednesday's drama unfolded before the flight had begun. All 114 passengers had boarded American Flight 924 scheduled to depart Miami for Orlando on Wednesday afternoon when Alpizar, traveling with his wife, said he had a bomb in his carry-on bag, according to federal officials. Alpizar had arrived in Miami from Quito, Ecuador, earlier that day and had stopped in Miami to board the second leg of his trip to Orlando, near his home in Maitland, federal officials said.

Several witnesses said they saw Alpizar run from his seat near the back of the plane to the front toward the cockpit, where air marshals confronted him. Passenger Mary Gardner, who said she was aboard the flight, said she saw the man identified as Alpizar run up the aisle, and he appeared to be panicked, she told WTVJ-TV in Miami. As he ran, his wife screamed "My husband! My husband!" and said that her husband was bipolar - a mental illness also known as manic-depression - and had not taken medicine, Gardner told the television station.

AP reports:
Passenger Mike Deshears, who works for the Marriott vacation club in Orlando area, said that as the couple ran, "a gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt immediately followed. ... It was a matter of seconds before there was six pops."

The wife returned to get her bag and was profusely apologetic, he said. "She said it was her fault that he was bipolar. He was sick and she had convinced him to get on the plane."

Since it turns out that Alpizar didn't have any explosives, it appears that this was all a tragic mistake.

Although many are sure to jump on the incident as reason for keeping guns off planes, it should be noted that Alpizar's wife, Anne Buechner, an employee of an advocacy group for the mentally ill and disabled, did not fault the air marshals for their response to her husband's behavior.

Of course, there needs to be an investigation into the shooting, but from the information available at this point, I will not condemn the air marshals for acting to protect innocent lives.

Buechner certainly should not be blaming herself for Alpizar's condition. She has my sympathy for the loss of her husband under these painful circumstances.

So often it seems an ill individual is not taking prescribed medication for a disorder, with tragic results. It's self-destructive.

According to the accounts of Alpizar's relatives and neighbors, he did not exhibit signs of the dramatic instability he displayed today.

It makes me wonder if Alpizar knew what he was doing when he claimed to have a bomb and did not cooperate with the air marshals.

Was this a "suicide by cop" case?
Michael G. Conner describes "suicide by cop" as an act whereby a person presents a threat to a police officer in order to compel the officer or officers to use deadly force to stop that threat. The result is a suicide at the hands of a police officer.

Of course, this is just conjecture, but it seems plausible that Alpizar may have sought his own death.

In any event, it's a tragedy that Alpizar was killed because he apparently suffered from an illness that was not controlled.

It's also a tragedy that the murderous behavior of radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorists have made it necessary for air marshals to use deadly force when faced with threats of violence.