C. Peabody-Pandis wrote the following:

"I’m sure some of these passengers thought they were going to die." "Mr. Alpizar was killed because he was a terrorist. He terrorized passengers and crew into believing they were going to die at his hands."

Well, I assume that terrorism charges are imminent against all the media outlets who reported earlier this year on the plane landing in California with no landing gear. It's well documented that some of those passengers thought they were going to die, "terrorized... into believing" in fact, despite the landing being relatively straightforward and unlikely to cause death.

Your argument rests on the mistaken assumption that causing feelings of terror constitutes terrorism. I've been terrified by a good many things in my life but have never thought to label the agents of that terror to be terrorists.

"He was shot after running up the aisle toward the cockpit." This quote from the original story was repeated by C. Peabody-Pandis and others, presumably as evidence of Mr. Alpizar's terrorist intentions. I would like to ask; if someone is desperate to exit a plane, for any reason, what other direction would they run? The door is beside the cockpit! Besides, with newly armoured cockpit doors what would Mr. Alpizar have done when he got there? Blown it up? His proximity to the cockpit would be rather irrelevant if he actually was going to explode some device.

Again from C. Peabody-Pandis: "We live in a period of fear and heightened anxieties. We have witnessed people strapping explosives to their persons and breeze in to open markets, or transportation and blow themselves and other up." True, but we've lived in such a world for several decades. Why the need to make ridiculous, useless changes to airport security now? How will that stop people from "strapping explosives to their persons and breeze in to open markets"?

I also fear that some of the comments made in reply to this article indicate an acceptance of the idea that it would be okay to restrict the travel freedoms of people with mental illness. I fear that someday we will feel comforted by the question, "May I see your papers?"

I find the actual presence of gun-toting sky marshalls on board passenger aircraft to be a greater source of anxiety than the prospective presence of hijackers. The Alpizar shooting only reinforces that anxiety. The killing of Mr. Alpizar is a horrifying consequence of the assumption that guns are the best response to our insecurities. In reality, the presence of armed agents only makes it inevitable that any "threat" will provoke a lethal reaction, regardless of the reality or the degree of that threat.

Placing sky marshalls on board aircraft is not necessarily a bad idea. But if those marshalls were unarmed, or armed with non-lethal weapons such as tasers, Rigoberto Alpizar would be alive today. It is quite unlikely that terrorists would knowingly take the chance of encountering well-trained agents in the course of a hijacking, even if they knew that the agents carried no guns.

Finally, Patrick is quite right to draw attention to the parallel between the shooting of Menezes in the London subway and the Alpazar shooting. Those Americans who insist that marshalls with guns are essential to their safety never imagine that they themselves could be at the wrong end of the barrel. This sense of safety - or should we call it immunity? - comes from the knowledge that their skins lack a certain pigmentation. Being a brown-skinned man like Menezes and Alpizar, I lack such assurance, and fear the "misunderstandings" that accompany this culture of paranoia.

S. Sen

It was interesting that page 1 and page 2 were almost separate articles. And (perhaps not so interesting) they each reflect my personal beliefs exactly. I couldn't have said it any better, about the cruel and reckless slaying of a disturbed passenger or about the folly of naive cowards who keep us from carrying Swiss army keychains. For the last 4 years I've maintained that we could all have been be forced to dress in hospital gowns with no carry-ons allowed, and Atta's thugs would have still successfully seized the plane--due to policy, not due to box cutters.

This threat presented itself, and we believe it was necessary to use deadly force," Bauer said.

The speaker was Jim Bauer, special agent in charge of the air marshals' office in Miami, not Jack Bauer of CTU. And he spoke seemingly without irony. The truth is as obvious as it is unpleasant: no threat presented itself. If the marshals perceived a threat, that speaks to their training and perhaps too much time watching 24. Other passengers who have gotten through the filter and reported what they saw and heard, did perceive what was going on. I hope some of them were screaming to their interrogators, once the guns were pointed away from their heads, "What the fuck have you goons DONE?"

The perceptual difference might well be in the mindset: air marshals, like US police, are trained to view their environment as hyper hostile, and they routinely treat those they engage with excessive force, both physical and "spiritual" (for lack of a better word). All in the name of protecting something that is being squeezed out of the American body politic.

Another dozen reasons why I'm glad to have abandoned that troubled country for a new life in New Zealand. Requiescat Bush aeterno in tormento.