Man Shot After Airport Bomb Claim

Air Marshal Shoots Passenger Who Said He Had Bomb; No Bomb Found

(CBS/AP)  An agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday after he bolted frantically from a jetliner that was boarding for takeoff, officials said. No bomb was found.

It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said. Another federal official said there was no apparent link to terrorism.

Marshals – who often fly in teams – regularly train with weapons in aircraft mockups to learn how to shoot safely in very confined and congested spaces, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

According to a witness, the passenger ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757, flailing his arms, while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.

The passenger, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, indicated there was a bomb in his bag and was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft, Doyle said. The marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the ground, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag, Doyle said.

Aviation consultant Micheal Boyd told CBS News that despite the tragic end, the marshals did the right thing, in part because Alpizar ran off the plane and could have threatened people in the terminal as well.

"We can't take chances anymore," Boyd said.

Dr. Marc Siegel, author of False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear, agrees. "Well I don't think we can really look at it as an isolated incident because what it does show us is we are in a post-September 11th world where everybody is nervous and everybody is on edge."

Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, was gunned down on a jetway outside the American Airlines plane, which was parked at a gate at Miami International Airport. Alpizar had arrived earlier in the day from Quito, Ecuador, and Flight 924 was going to Orlando, near his home in Maitland.

Orr reports that Alpizar has no background record and is not connected to any terrorist group.

Relatives said Alpizar and his wife 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 Beuchner, said by telephone from her home in Milwaukee.

The shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m. as Flight 924 was about to take off for Orlando with the man and 119 other passengers and crew, American spokesman Tim Wagner said.

After the shooting, investigators spread passengers' bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives, and bomb squad members blew up at least two bags.

No bomb was found, said James E. Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals field office in Miami. He said there was no reason to believe there was any connection to terrorists.

The concourse where the shooting took place was shut down for a half-hour, but the rest of the airport continued operating, officials said.

Federal officials declined to say how many times Alpizar was shot, or reveal how many air marshals were on the plane.