I watched this story break in the media and was shocked and saddened by it, because I knew it was simply inevitable. The story seemed straightforward enough; a guy freaked out on an airplane and got dead because of it. You’d have to be either seriously crazy or just plain stupid to pull a stunt on an airplane these days. But even so, I noted that early on we’d still only heard one side of the story: that of the authorities.
And I said, well, it’s a terrible thing to have to kill this innocent man, but this is their job. This is what we have come to. But even while I thought that, because I dont trust the authorities, especially governmental or law enforcement and military authorities, I had that seed of doubt, that glimmering of suspicion. We just hadn’t heard the whole story yet. And I dont trust these guys to do the right thing. Even if they want to, it seems like most of the time, they’re just too incompetent to be able to. And I thought of Jean Charles de Menezes, and I wondered.
Well, we’re sure hearing from the witnesses now. And it turns out that maybe what I thought was just some more sour grapes from my misanthropic, angry, bitter view of the world…that maybe these marshals shouldn’t have killed this guy, maybe they’re making up a story to justify this death…just might have been accurate after all. Not a single witness heard the word “bomb,” and they’re all indicating to the press, loud and clear, that while Rigoberto Alpizar might have been having a bad time of it, he was no danger to anyone else around him.
Then there’s the matter of his wife running behind the marshals as they were chasing her husband down and shooting him in the back, hallucinating bomb threats as it turns out. I dont know how they could have heard Mr Alpizar making threats when all the witness are claiming that Mrs Alpizar was screaming at the marshals that her husband was bipolar, and that he was off his medication.
As well, there also stands the question as to why, after this mentally disturbed, unarmed man was gunned down outside a plane full of now panicked and traumatized civilian passengers, these federal air marshals, paid for by the tax dollars of most of the people on that aircraft and installed there to protect and preserve the lives and freedom of American citizens and all air passengers, re-boarded the aircraft and apparently held shotguns to the heads of some of the passengers, forcing them all to put their hands on their heads and treating, on American soil, a plane full of innocent civilians like actual terrorists until they’d satisfied their wanton, testosterone-and-patriotism-fueled bravado by blowing up a couple of pieces of “suspicious” luggage. This despite the fact that every thing on that plane, baggage, crew, passengers…and this, by the way, includes Mr Alpizar…had already successfully passed numerous security checkpoints prior to boarding.
I could make a lot of ascerbic, cutting, sarcastic remarks here about how we’re so adamant to keep our country safe that we’re willing to strip every single right and freedom that we have to do it, but all I really want to do is ask a question or two: what is it going to take for us to learn? How many times does this have to happen?
I’m willing to bet that if the swarthy, dark-haired, dark-eyed Ricoberto Alpizar was the light skinned, blue eyed, blond haired Mike Robertson, he’d be home with his family right now, recounting the frightful scare he’d had after he’d gone off his meds the other day in the airport, how sure he was that those federal marshals just might shoot him. Boy, was he lucky they were so well trained!
Merry Christmas, Mrs Alpizar. You can sleep well tonight, knowing that your government is willing to go to any lengths to keep you safe from harm.
Eyewitness: “I Never Heard the Word ‘Bomb’”
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Keep your car’s tires inflated. Low air pressure means more drag, which means more energy lost. Save your gas money!
