Threatening words, then shots rang out

MIAMI — An agitated man who was returning from a church trip to South America and reportedly said he had a bomb was gunned down by federal air marshals Wednesday near the front door of an American Airlines plane. No bomb was found.

It was the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that a marshal had killed a passenger on or near a U.S. plane. A federal official said there was no apparent link to terrorism.

The shooting occurred within earshot of other horrified passengers, who reported hearing four to five shots. The man — identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, of Maitland, Fla. — died at the scene. He had arrived at Miami International Airport from Quito, Ecuador, early Wednesday with his wife.

Passenger Mary Gardner told WTVJ-TV in Miami that Alpizar ran from the rear of the plane. "He was frantic, his arms flailing in the air," she said. She said a woman followed, shouting, "My husband! My husband!"

Gardner said she heard the woman say Alpizar was bipolar — a mental illness also known as manic depression — and had not had his medication.

Authorities could not verify that, but gave this account of events:

After clearing customs, Alpizar boarded American Airlines Flight 924, a Boeing 757 scheduled to depart at 2:18 p.m. for Orlando, near his home. The plane was to carry 120 passengers and crew.

As Alpizar was boarding the jetliner, air marshals noticed he was acting strangely, walking aggressively.

About 10 minutes before departure, still during the boarding process, Alpizar "uttered threatening words," informing nearby passengers that he had a bomb in his backpack, said Jim Bauer, special agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals Miami office.

Two federal air marshals overheard Alpizar, he said.

Alpizar attempted to flee. The marshals chased him onto the jetway that connected the plane with the terminal and ordered him to the ground. Alpizar instead reached into his bag, and the agents responded with gunfire.

It wasn't immediately clear whether other passengers were on the jetway.

Officials found no explosives in the backpack, said Rick Thomas, the Transportation Security Administration's federal director at Miami International.

The air marshals "followed procedure by the book," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said.

Relatives said Alpizar had been on a working vacation in Peru. A neighbor who said he had been asked to watch the couple's home described the vacation as a missionary trip.

"We're all still in shock. We're just speechless," a sister-in-law, Kelley Buechner, said by telephone from her home in Milwaukee.

Alpizar's brother-in-law, Steven Buechner, said Alpizar was a native of Costa Rica, and met Buechner's sister, Anne, when she was an exchange student there. Relatives said the couple had been married about two decades.

Neighbors described Alpizar as a pleasant man who worked in the paint department of a home-supply store. Many found it incomprehensible that he could have made a bomb threat.

"He was a nice guy, always smiling, always talkative," Louis Gunther said. "Everybody is talking about a guy I know nothing about."

After the shooting, investigators spread passengers' bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives. Two bags belonging to Alpizar were blown up on the tarmac as a precaution.

No bomb was found, Bauer said. He said there was no reason to believe there was any connection to terrorists.

Still, after the shooting, Miami-Dade police surrounded the aircraft, boarded it and told passengers to put their hands on their heads, said Gardner, the passenger.

"It was quite scary," she said via cellphone. "They wouldn't let you move. They wouldn't let you get anything out of your bag."

John McAlhany, a Sebastian, Fla., construction worker on his way home from a fishing trip in the Florida Keys, said passengers were ordered to crouch. When he tried to pop up for a look, he said, a flight attendant ordered him to get back down.

He said Alpizar apparently left a backpack on the plane, adding that other passengers were treated roughly when law-enforcement officers boarded the plane.

"They put a gun to the back of my head and said, 'Put your hands on the seat,' " he said. "That was more scary than anything else."

McAlhany said the passengers were taken to a conference room.

"I don't know if they shot an innocent man or not," he said. "I don't think he was armed or had a bomb, I think he had a mental illness. I don't think they really had to shoot him, but I hope he didn't holler something stupid."

Bauer said many details of the shooting need to be sorted out. "This investigation is still under way," he said. "We don't have all the answers."

Compiled from Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Associated Press, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and The Washington Post