Dear Patrick,

I'm a devoted reader of, fairly regular writer to your column and all-around member of your fan club. Partially that's due to the fact that the same things that fascinate you about aviation also fascinate me, but partially it's due to the fact that I share both your worldview about the crazy times we live in and your strict adherence to logic.

That said, I think today's column takes a slight detour from your normally rigorous logic. It's clearly too soon to make a final judgment on the actions of the Air Marshalls in Miami, or on what those actions say about the system as a whole, which you also acknowledge. But while you heavily criticize them in the lead, at first blush, they did exactly what you spend most of this column (as well as most of many other columns) advocating for: enforcing security based on actions and intent, not dumb things like scissors and sneakers.

Whether the use of *deadly* force was warranted is an unanswered and very important question. Among other things, I don't know what their protocol is for these things – whether it's a "if you shoot at all, shoot to kill" situation, as many police protocols are. But on balance, a guy running around an airplane screaming incoherently and reaching for something in a bag is *exactly* the type of threat that at least I believe we should be responding to – as opposed to weeding out manicure kits at security. It's a dangerous behavior, and at least apparently, an intent to do harm. I share your belief that a lot of our response since 9/11 has been overblown, wasteful and not very effective. But this one, at least on the face of it, seems to me like a counter-example.

As noted in the article and the comments this is eerily similar to the London killing by Police of the Brazilian gentleman. On the one hand it makes complete sense that officers should be empowered to shoot a suspect who seems to be about to trigger a bomb since the risk of an innocent person being killed would have to be weighed against the risk of many innocent people in the vicinity being killed.

On the other hand the facts of the London killing have turned to be quite unlike the slam-dunk case initially presented by the Police and in a mere 24 hours it's looking like the clear-justification for this killing is also turning out to be untrue. The simple reason I believe this killing was wholly avoidable is that any street cop would have recognized that this man was having a mental breakdown as they deal with it daily. The failure to identify the threat with any accuracy sprung directly from the myopia of technician cops thinking inside a tiny box..

The whole blade discussion is again missing the point. September 11th was possible because they did what we weren't expecting.. next time they will again do what we don't expect and haven't prepared for.. Yesterday elegantly demonstrated a defensive strategy that is narrow, inflexible, predictable and lacks the smarts of a regular cop. It would be so easy to think of a thousand diversions that exploit this lack of common sense and fixation with nails clippers.

Mr. Smith claims that education for air marshalls on the subject of pysychology and specifically the best way to subdue a potentially dangerous mentally ill person (or any upset person, mentally ill or not) is not the most important question. I beg/plead for the sake of civilization to disagree.

In my opinion from what I've observed, read and participated in, the odds that there are far too many so called security officials (air marshalls, police personel etc) who think that the term 'mentally ill' is an invention on the part of the 'liberal elite' are extremely high. And these are the people who work directly w/the individuals in question. The people for whom that information is essential in a civilized society -- a society based on reasoned response rather than emotional, id-based reaction; oh, and greed.

Every last one of those in any kind of power over individuals should be fluent in all the research that's been done (scientific, experiential and anecdotal) about human beings under stress. The very very very real connection between emotion (reaction) and reason (response) is the most important issue of the day.

Brute force based on immediate reaction to a dangerous situation is obviously appropriate. It used to be the rule of the day -- back in the day of saber tooth tigers and hunting and gathering.

We claim to have come a long way from then.

Let's prove it and start taking the connection between id-iotic emotional phenomenon that is natural and at times life saving, and reason which is also natural and in the long run, will save humanity.

An education in the dynamic between mind and emotion should start in kindergarten.

Speaking as a diagnosed bipolar patient (rapid cycling with severe psychotic features when untreated), this guy was in dire straits before he boarded the plane. It was obvious not only to his wife but to surrounding witnesses that he was highly agitated, appeared delusional, and was singing spirituals. He was psychotic while he was boarding.

While I agree that deadly force may not have been necessary, the truth is that Alpizar and his wife are partially responsible for the situation. Let me explain.

Bipolar disorder is not about "moodswings". It is a deadly serious brain disorder. Everyone who has been correctly diagnosed as bipolar has had at least one severe manic episode - you cannot receive a diagnosis without a manic episode, and more often than not, a manic episode has psychotic features. It seems to me that Alpizar has three strikes against him: he had a definitive diagnosis of bipolar disorder; he was off his medicine; and his wife didn't get him straight to a hospital.

If he was diabetic, you can be sure he'd have had his insulin on hand. If he was prone to cardiac events or even high blood pressure, it's likely he'd either be on continuous medication or else in the hospital. It is finally the patient's own responsibility to take charge of his or her own treatment, and the second line of defense lies with family members who understand the illness.

This case speaks to me less about the state of airline security and much more about the state of mental health care and awareness in this country. Far too many bipolars have the mistaken belief that their illness is minor. A subset of those believe that their illness is "cured" once they are stabilized on the correct medications. The truth is that bipolar disorder is incurable; only the symptoms can be ameliorated. Fully fifty percent of diagnosed bipolars are non-compliant with their medication regimen, and that is an unacceptable number.

It's a terribly vicious cycle. Bipolar patient gets put on good medicine - bipolar patient feels cured - bipolar patient goes off meds - bipolar patient slowly succumbs to an inevitable relapse, which causes a profound erosion of insight and judgement. A psychotic person generally isn't capable of reasoned, rational response. A rational response for someone with a heart problem would be, "Oops, I just had a major palpitation; I should get that looked at or get back on my medicine as soon as I can." But someone who has slipped into severe mania or psychosis doesn't have that ability. They lose their mental capacity to understand the severity of their own mental state.

It was obvious that his wife knew how sick he was. Even if there had been some unlikely extenuating circumstance that had prevented her husband from taking his meds, the responsibility was on her to either get him to a hospital for immediate treatment or at least to tell flight personnel about her husband's mental state. Ideally, he never should have flown at all in his delusional state.

It makes me very angry that so few people take this illness seriously. I can't tell you the number of times people have downplayed my own struggle with bipolar disorder with the refrain of "just snap out of it" or something equally dismissive. The truth is that most untreated bipolars only wind up hurting themselves; the suicide rate for those that refuse medication is outrageously high. (Just try to find an insurance company that will admit a pre-exisiting bipolar diagnosis.) For that reason, bipolar disorder has a mortality rate higher than most forms of cancer. But psychosis is tricky, and psychotic people do sometimes hurt other people, most often their own children or beloved family members. And yet it is still treated as a simple annoyance or minor impediment by most health care providers and most patients.

The real story here is yet another tragic instance of severe, debilitating mental illness being treated as a head cold.