by Larry C. Johnson (bio below)
Wednesday’s shooting of an American Airlines passenger by a Federal Air Marshal (FAM) has launched the usual flood of Monday morning quarterbacking.
Unfortunately, some key issues are being misrepresented and misreported. As one of the point men for the State Department in dealing with US airlines and the TSA’s predecessor, the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Security, in the 1990s I have some experience with aviation security issues.
Was the shooting justified? Based on eye witness accounts in the public record the answer is yes. I’ve heard some of the silliest, most ill informed commentary on both radio and televsion. Some commentators have asked, “why didn’t the FAM grab the bag”? This question shows a complete lack of understanding about explosives. If you are confronted with someone who claims to have a bomb you must assume the person has a bomb. Your first objective is to try to get the person to put the item in question on the ground and then evacuate the area until a bomb dog or robot can come on scene. If that is not possible you then try to isolate the individual and have all other folks evacuated from the area. In this case, the troubled man would not relinquish control of his bag. The FAM is not trained to grab the bag because such a move could actually trigger an explosive. When you are dealing with possible bombs you do not assume unless you want to earn the nickname, “Lefty” or “One-Eyed Pete”. Once the suspect reached into the bag the FAM had to assume he was reaching for the detonator.
Some, especially the company that makes Tazers, have complained, “Why didn’t they use a Tazer?”
Two words–Rodney King. Despite claims that a Tazer will always put someone on the ground, that is just marketing hype by the manufacturer of the device. In this situation the FAM must be certain the person is put down. Unfortunately, there are enough cases where a person hit by a Tazer has continued to fight and move. Two bullets in the center of the chest puts you on the ground.
Some folks who have watched too much Hollywood pablum have whined, “Why didn’t they shoot him in the arm or the leg?” A shooting is a very quick event and precise shooting, even at close range, can be difficult. Accordingly, FAMs and other law enforcement officers are taught to shoot at center of mass, i.e. the chest. You never point a firearm at someone in order to “wing” them. A gun is a lethal weapon. Even if you shoot someone in the arm or leg there is no guarantee they will be disabled. They could still move and possibly disarm the FAM. If you shoot, shoot to kill. Thems the rules.
Now for my pet peeve, TV and media reporters need to understand that the render safe performed on the bag does not mean the bag is “blown up” or “exploded”. What appears to be an explosion is usually a shotgun shooting a blast of water at the suspected detonator. This action separates the detonator, if there actually is one, from the explosive. Normally, this keeps the device, if there is one, from exploding. TV is supposed to educate, not mislead folks.
Finally, this event may produce a tough look at the FAM program. Do we still need them? For starters most flights do not have FAMs on board. There are over 30,000 flight segments a day. The average flight requires 3 FAMs. If the average FAM earns $50,000 a year you are talking about a minimum budget of $4.5 billion just to put men and women with guns on board everyone of our planes. We are not willing to pay that price.
Do we really need FAMs? Since the cockpit doors have been hardened and locked, the risk of a repeat 9-11 style hijacking has been virtually eliminated. Effective security screening can keep mass casualty weapons, such as firearms, off of planes. A person with a knife, even a big knife, cannot kill a lot of people. A man with a gun that has 12 bullets and an extra magazine can do significant damage. We probably can get by without them.
The real remaining gap in the aviation security system is being able to determine if someone is carrying an explosive in their carry on or on their person. The existing technologies currently deployed, mostly trace detectors (you know, the cotton patch rubbed over your briefcase) are not terribly reliable and are used on only a very small number of passengers. We still need a technology that can screen all passengers and bags in an efficient, reliable manner. This is a tough technological challenge. However, if we spent $3 billion a year on developing this technology rather than flying armed guards from one airport to another we would ultimately be better off. Just a thought.
……………………………………………………..
Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world. Further bio details.
Personal Blog: No Quarter || Bio
Recommended Book List || More BoomanTribune Posts
weapons training. . .correct me if I’m wrong.
Warning! The following is graphic and may be painful for some readers.
I understand the preferred target is the head shot. For obvious reasons (and the MIA case is a good example) one might not appreciate shooting into the explosive device, especially when it’s clutched to the chest — as this man’s non-explosive backpack appears to have been.
Also, head shots tend not to produce certain spasming of the extremities that body shots can. Consequently, the chance of a death throe triggering of a device is reduced.
Apologies for the gruesome nature of this post.
Fascinating.
My heart goes out to both the man’s family and to the federal marshals. It’s tragic he wasn’t on his medications (apparently). And the marshals were doing as they’d been instructed…. it must be a strange job to have. Hours and hours of unremitting boredom of sitting and watching and waiting … tense because one has to remind one’s self to remain on guard …. then in that split second, a decision to be made. Very difficult 🙁
And it’s very nice of you to warn people.
I didn’t find it difficult … moreso I found it interesting because it sounds like it’s critical info for police, soldiers, etc. to learn.
Sad that anyone ever has to learn it 🙁 But there are stone-cold killers, etc. out there. And sometimes a bullet is what it requires to stop them.
I assume that Rigoberto Alpizar was shot with a handgun (media reports I’ve read don’t specify), which is inherently much less accurate than a rifle.
My understanding is that a head shot would be fairly challenging for a trained sniper. That the marshals shot for the chest was only logical, and responsible within the context of the situation.
Hi Larry,
I would love your perspective on the AIPAC-Israel Spy Ring proceedings. It seems an incovenient topic on progressive blogs, as is the disproportionate influence of AIPAC on our political system.(4th most powerful lobby in USA) Could you please shed some light on those two topics in a FP post?
Thanks!
What concerns me Larry is that eyewitnessing are saying the man was yelling things but never yelled anything about a bomb. I am sure the marshals did as they were taught to do but I have doubts about this. I heard this account on Countdown with Keith Olberman tonight. He is the only journalist I trust at this point to get the facts right.
I have the same concerns and questions.
Also, in considering the factor of split second life threatening risk assessment why was the backpack a factor?
Wouldn’t it have already been cleared before he could board the plane with it? I thought at least one advantage of the tedious screening procedures was to minimize risk in flight.
Do the FAMs have that much doubt or that little faith in the screening process both for passenger risk and carry on risk?
It seems that the screenings would help prevent the senseless tragic loss of life.
What happened to these developments?
what I find disturbing is the number of Americans who’re just peachy kean w/ the increasing willingness of American law enforcement to use deadly force. For every one of the people you mock for “Monday morning quarterbacking” I’ve heard three or four shrugging and saying “they had no choice”.
What I find disturbing is that we’re a supposed peace loving Christian nation yet we mindlessly say “thank you” whenever law enforcement acts in this way. We PRESUME whoever the dead person is was “asking for it”. Amazing, looking at his face on the television, that his complexion is of a duskier hue, as it so often is in these situations.
What I find disturbing is that this Nation of supposed freedom has an expanding and increasingly brutal prison system. What I find disturbing is that we are becoming more and more militarized, a modern day Sparta full of strutting cowboys and would-be weekend warriors who take joy in the destruction we deal out, the countries we “glass”, the misery we cause.
I don’t know if the FAMs acted “properly”. None of us do. They may have committed a ghastly mistake while still acting within the rules of their training and engagement. Shouldn’t we all bow our heads quietly for this poor man, this poor family and for the officers who killed him? Shouldn’t we take a step back and look at violence as a sometimes necessary evil instead of the unavoidable “fact” of life that we seem to get such a rush from?
Who the fuck am I kidding, though. This is a violent country inhabited by violent immature bullies with too much power and no sense of responsibility for the future. Take comfort in the fact that you too may find yourself in a building lobby or a airliner or a train car with a heavily armed paramilitary police aiming a riot shotgun or AR-15 at your head as they search for “terrorists”.
You’re right. Success in this country is based on violence, mental or physical, and ruthlessness.
This society has forgotten how to look out for the weaker ones among us and instead stay focused on looking out for number one.
There was an interview on MSNBC that evening (or the next)and the passenger was commenting in very happy tones about the great treatment they received after the ‘incident’. I won’t accuse her of being cold but I didn’t see much sign of loss for human life that had occurred. That hurt but it really pissed me off. There was no sign of sympathy toward the victim’s family either. This would be bad enough if the tragedy was necessary and the victim was actually trying to do harm. It’s worse when the victim was innocent of wrongdoing, at least in a broad sense.
No matter how it goes down, people don’t “deserve” to die and especially not in circumstances like that.
I’m still asking why the screening process doesn’t help save lives against incidents like this one.
You’re wrong about this. It’s a fuck-up just like the underground shooting in London.
Disgusting.
When flights are refused entry to US and forced to divert on a mistaken identity watchlist name, how was this man allowed to board and take a seat with his wife if he made those claims in boarding?
I’m of two minds on this incident. My son is a police sergeant in California who absolutely hates (and that is the correct work) what the TSA has done to civil liberties in the US. Before Sept. 11 the rent a cops who screened passengers worked for security agencies and got paid very little; now the very same people work for the TSA and get paid more, but they are still not trained to think and act like law enforcment people. Most airport security people wouldn’t have a clue what to do if confronted by an actual terrorist, because they are too busy randomly searching three year old girls, 80 year old grandmothers, and U.S. Senators. My son also has had to use a Tazer on occasion and while I’m incredibly happy that he has one, so that he won’t have to resort to deadly force in cases where he may have to if he didn’t have a Tazer, the weapon can be ineffective against people so amped on drugs or so mentally unbalanced that pain doesn’t matter.
As far as I can tell from listening to law enforcement people, the air marshal did what he should have done. The person who claimed to have a bomb and who was acting as if to cause it to go off presented a clear and immediate danger to other people. The options for a police officer in this situation are very narrow. He must shoot to kill. Why anyone would want a job that puts them in that situation is both a mystery to me, and impresses me.
On the other hand, real airport security should have detained this unfortunate man and not let him on the plane. We need more profesional screeners at airports; individuals with some background and experience at analyzing behavior.
I am afraid that virtually the same questions are (or should be) being asked about this case as in the heated debates surrounding the shooting of a Brazilian on the London Underground in July. In that case the Independent Police Complaints Commission gave a press conference today to confirm they have sent details of the case to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision on if and what charges should be made against the police officers who killed him.
The two cases are worryingly similar.
In both the gunmen were hyped up because of threats previously.
In both cases there are questions on why the person was able to get to the point where they were thought to be a danger. In London they were related to whether the victim should have been stopped earlier. In this case, it is reported that the victim had behaved peculiarly on the flight from abroad but had been allowed to pass through immigaration and then transfer to a domestic flight without being challenged.
In the coverage I have seen of the case, camera crews have interviewed “witnesses” who were only in the terminal and not either on the plane or in a position to see or even hear the incident. That sort of reporting of second or third or fourth hand gossip also happened in London.
In the London case, the police statements claimed a warning had been given but witnesses close enough to hear deny it, the same here.
What appears to be the main difference is the extreme scrutiny the London police were under to fully justify their actions as soon as it was obvious their allegations that he was a terrorist were false.
While I strongly cautioned in discussion about the London case that the police should not be called “murderers” until a proper independent investigation had taken place, neither should the worry about “terra” cause you to rush to exhonorate the Federal Marshalls.