ABC EXCLUSIVE: Shoe Bomber Alert Preceded Airport Shooting

[DoYouEverWonder]

Dec. 7, 2005 — Federal law enforcement sources tell ABC News they had been on the alert for a possible shoe bomber when a federal air marshal opened fire at the Miami International Airport today.

In today's incident, an agitated passenger claiming to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal, officials said. No bomb was found.

Officials say a 50-year-old Egyptian man was stopped six days ago at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. Sources say he had a suspicious pair of shoes that tested positive five times for the explosive substance TATP on the interior of his shoes between the heel and sole.

Federal officials say the man's shoes are remarkably similar to those used by shoe bomber Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines jet over the Atlantic four years ago.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1383832&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

[mmonk]

1. that somehow smells

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. This whole MIA story smells

Now they are fishing for excuses. In the meantime, the guy whose shoes tested positive for explosives five times is set free.

[rodeodance]

5. What is "MIA"?

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Miami International Airport

where they killed the bi-polar guy yesterday.

[rodeodance]

10. thanks. (my mind was on the other case).

[RazzleDazzle]

36. I was on the fence about this incident until this little story

now I'm sure they're lying and that an innocent man is UNNECESSARILY dead. The bastards. The fucking bastards.

[Shadder]

3. Uh-huh...sure

And Katrina was just a little rainstorm.

[rodeodance]

4. airport security released him, then FBI was notified, now FBI wants him.

...Federal officials say the man's shoes are remarkably similar to those used by shoe bomber Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines jet over the Atlantic four years ago.

The Egyptian man's destination was Des Moines, Iowa, sources say, and he claimed he was a student at Iowa State University in Ames.

Strangely, after holding him overnight, airport security in New York released him. The FBI was notified after he was released. Now the FBI has put out a nationwide alert.

The man shot dead in Miami appears to have been deranged, but the missing Egyptian may help explain why air marshals acted as they did.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. The FBI was notified AFTER he was released

Gee, what a good idea. Let's let him go and then call the FBI.

[rodeodance]

11. the suspect was headed to Des Moines Iowa.

[wordpix]

27. what a bunch of dangerous morons running this show under Chimp-in-chief

[mbperrin]

8. OH, well! Everything's OK then, right? No problemos!!

Move along, nothing to see here; the nasty ol'Egyptian guy from up north made us do it!...

[tocqueville]

9. I know people with a foot odor that could kill n/t

[mmonk]

12. I'm glad my

hair is light, I have blue eyes, and my skin pale white.

[Thorandmjolnir]

13. They keep saying that

"an agitated passenger claiming to have a bomb in his backpack" but so far I have not heard one witness say that he actually claimed to have a bomb. On CNN this morning a witness said he never said anything about a bomb. And CNN said that the man followed the air marshals instructions to get of the plane, and that he was shot outside the plane.

So, where did this "bomb" thing start?

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. So far the only people who claim that he said he had a bomb

are the air marshals.

It seems there were an awful lot of air marshals who just happened to be on the plane and in the area.

[rodeodance]

22. I did not know that. um....

[qanda]

23. I noticed that also

And the story about the bag keeps changing. In fact, I first heard that he was reaching in his bag. Then I heard that it looked like he was going for his bag. Now I'm hearing that he didn't even have a bag. What is going on here? It would certainly be nice to have an independent media in this country.

[sendero]

15. This was...

.. a panic shooting of a mentally ill person. I watched reports this AM too, and nobody heard jack about a bomb. If you were setting off a bomb, why would you run down the aisle? Why would you announce it?

I feel sorry for everyone involved. The mans' wife had to witness the whole thing also. Just sad.

[Athame]

25. If you were mentally ill and thought there was a bomb on the plane

Would you run down the aisle shouting and trying to get away?

Maybe he was trying to warn the other passengers, or maybe he was delusional. Who knows? We will never have the straight story now.

[sendero]

29. Well...

... as a person well-familiar with bipolar disorder, it is nothing like schizophrenia or the like, delusions of grandeur yes, vanilla delusions no.

Of course, this guy might have had multiple disorders, it is not unheard of.

Like I said, I just feel sorry for everyone involved.

[endarkenment]

31. Perhaps but then

we would have lots of neutral eyewitnesses saying "he was running down the aisle shouting about a bomb" and we don't.

Perhaps these witnesses will come forward and most of us can sink back into some comfort zone about this incident. Not me.

[endarkenment]

30. I listened closely to two eyewitness accounts on the morning

news show (Today or GMA I don't know which) and neither account included any recollection of this person shouting about a bomb. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying that so far it is not sourced from anyone other than the officials involved, officials who have a vested interest in justifying the shooting.


How readily we accept the killing of one of our own. How quick we are to accept as reasonable "but he could have had a bomb" when in fact, he didn't.

[SpiralHawk]

16. The Invasion of the Evil Shoe bombers

Watch out! The Shoe Bombers will get you!

Only known defense: clean socks.

[KittyWampus]

17. Just Flashed Back To Innocent Guy Killed In England- After Being Trailed

for miles.

Remember?

[Roland99]

18. Oh FFS!!!!

:eyes:

[DeepModem Mom]

19. More: they let the Egyptian man go, and are now looking for him.

"The Egyptian man's destination was Des Moines, Iowa, sources say, and he claimed he was a student at Iowa State University in Ames.

Strangely, after holding him overnight, airport security in New York released him. The FBI was notified after he was released. Now the FBI has put out a nationwide alert."

Folks, I hate what happened to an innocent man in Miami, but I question the widespread denial here that we are in any danger when we fly. I remember the Richard Reid shoe-bomber incident. It seemed in the administration's interest at the time to downplay the whole thing, but I remember thinking, for Christ's sake, the man intended to blow up AA from Paris to Miami, an airline I and my family frequently fly. And this turned out to be the case.

The Bush cabal has used terror scares to their political advantage many times, but I don't think that means we can, or should, always dismiss them -- especially since I believe the 9/11 Commission's recent report. Like everything else, the Bush administration has been been unable, or unwilling, to deal with national security following the terrorist attack on 9/11. Instead they have poured our blood and treasure down the sinkhole of Iraq.

[HereSince1628]

20. And that is the power of terror.

Because of the risks involved no governmental agency can ignore a terror alert.

[DoYouEverWonder]

33. Nice Catch 22 they've put us in

No one in at the local government level can take the risk of ignoring a terror alert issued by the Dept of HS, no matter how bogus everyone knows it is.

Notice they never even try to find out who started the bogus alerts so that they can be prosecuted?

[wordpix]

28. agree with you

[plasticsundance]

21. The bullshit just runs like water in the MSM

(i.e. the-US-state-controlled-corporate-media) Sucks ... huh ... being a dying empire that is too stubborn and stupid to change its way.

[yellowcanine]

24. If this keeps up everyone will have to wear flip flops to fly. And none

or those Birkenstock sandals with socks! Hard telling what one could hide in those. Not to mention that they are ugly.

[Redstone]

26. I stated my doubts yesterday, and lots of people said I was full or crap:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5540507

Redstone

[greyl]

32. They may be correct.

Explain how the parts of your statement have been proven:
"It's going to turn out that the guy didn't speak English well, and freaked when the Air Marshals threw down on him."

[Redstone]

38. The basic premise was that they guy was guilty of "running while brown."

Like the guy in London was.

Redstone

[Mojorabbit]

34. This man worked at the home depot near my house

in the paint section. THere is a huge article in the Orlando Sentinel today. His wife was a social worker. THey were in south america with a church group doing dentistry.
Here is an excerpt
the man ran up the aisle with his wife a few steps behind. She turned and told passengers her husband was sick, then went for their bags. A man in a Hawaiian shirt followed Alpizar off the plane, Beshears said. Then Beshears said he heard six shots.
He and another man pulled Alpizar's wife down to the floor.
"She was very apologetic, he said. She said it was her fault. She said he ws bipolar and she convinced him to get on the plane."

[Mojorabbit]

35. More frrom todays paper

"He was very very proud to become an american citizen and to vote".
Alizar moved to the US about 20 years ago after growing up on a farm near Golfito on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, according to his inlaws.
He and Anne Buechner his wife of more than 18 years regularly jogged and rode bicycles together through their Maitland neighborhood.

snip
Reports from the Miami airport shortly after the killing that described Alpizsar as mentally ill left longtime neighbor Louis Gunther doubting media accoutns. The friend he knew never showed any signs of a mental illness or aggression toward anyone.
snip
Alpizar and his wife bought their four bedroom house in 1998 where houses now sell for 250.000 and up. They had no children.
snip
Shortly after Thanksgiving Alpizare and his wife left on a trip sponsored by their church to work with children in South America, said Gunther who was taking care of their house while they were gone.
The couple first met in Costa Rica when Buechner, a social worker was working in Central AMerica. They regularly returned in recent years to his childhood home after the death of his mother to spend time with his aging gather, relatives said.

The widow's siblings, including brother Steven Buechner of Milwaukee, had not been able to speak to her by Wednesday evening.
"He was a very loving husband", said Jentsch, calling Alpizar "Rigo", a family nickname. "He loved to read and he taught himself English by reading".

[RazzleDazzle]

37. What keeps bouncing off my brain is

"American citizen." It's beyond a tragedy that an innocent man and an AMERICAN CITIZEN was shot and killed.

SIX SHOTS? Jeezus. Doesn't that qualify him as target practice or something?

Two of my children-in-law are legal immigrants, one of them from Columbia. I hope they haven't even heard this news. Were I in their shoes I might be reconsidering whether I wanted citizenship or not. In fact, as a natural born citizen, it occurs to me the whole matter might be up for review any day now.

[HuffleClaw]

39. "shoes were remarkably similar"

TERRA SHOES ! ! !

but seriously, this is a real lame cover story if i ever heard one. i bet they come up with another cover story too in the next few days.

[Dave Reynolds]

40. I call bullshit on ABC and "federal LE sources".

Fabricated justification is worse than no justification at all.

[Straight Shooter]

41. They're doing it again, they're muddying the waters so we'll never know

the truth.

Notice how this happens any time there's a controversy? Suddenly the story changes, then it changes again, and again, and again. Before too long, no one knows up from down.

This is my first comment on the story, but I've been reading almost every post. Something just didn't "feel right." Now it feels even worse. Six shots. WTF, did someone's trigger finger go into a spasm?