damnum absque injuria » Shooting First and Asking Questions Later?

December 8, 2005

Shooting First and Asking Questions Later?

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Miscellaneous

by Xrlq @ 6:59 pm

This does not look good. [UPDATE: Now we're up to two passengers who didn't hear the guy mentioning a bomb, vs. zero who did.]

UPDATE: This doesn’t look too hot, either.

Comments (5)

5 Responses to “Shooting First and Asking Questions Later?”

steve sturm Says:
December 8th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
If you’re bothered by Time’s taking this nobody – who has no laand making him the focus of their story, sure.
Xrlq Says:
December 8th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
Let’s just say I’ll be a lot less bothered by it if a few other passengers step forward and tell us this guy is full of crap. So far, that hasn’t happened.
SayUncle Says:
December 9th, 2005 at 6:56 am
Yeah, not to convinced on the first one but the second one is pretty abysmal.
John Anderson Says:
December 9th, 2005 at 11:37 am
Uh, about not earing him saying he had a bomb:

It is hard to hear anything more than a few rows away, even when at the terminal with the doors open.

He “told” a stew, he did not “yell” or “scream” to everyone. And he may have done so in the galley, I’m not clear on that.

The shooting did not occur until he had run out of the plane and refused to stop.
—
He may not have been mentally competent at that point, but so far I have seen nothing to show the agents acted improperly – madmen do kill. And his wife has been quoted as saying both that they had ust attended a “medical conference” and that he had not taken his medication[s]. Huh?
steve sturm Says:
December 9th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
Whether other passengers heard or didn’t hear the word ‘bomb’ is irrelevant. What is important is whether the air marshalls had reason to be suspicious of the man… which obviously can be based on factors other than an explicit mention, at a level loud enough for other passengers to hear, of the word bomb… and, not having heard any of the air marshall’s statement to investigators, none of us are (yet) in a position to condemn their actions.

What is also important is that this passenger, for whatever reason (stupidity or mental illness, who knows, but also irrelevant to whether the marshalls acted properly), failed to follow rule #1 when encountering someone who is armed: don’t give them a reason to shoot (especially in today’s terrorist-fearing climate). Don’t reach for wallets inside a pocket, don’t jump turnstiles, don’t keep running when yelled at to stop, just stop and do whatever it is that you are instructed to do. Millions of people have been held at gunpoint over the years… and it is but an unfortunate few who learned the lesson too late.