Thanks to the NY Times...
Relatives said the couple had been returning from a stressful vacation. Mr. Alpizar's wife, Anne Buechner, had been robbed in Peru, losing her wallet, passport, laptop computer and cellphone, said her sister-in-law, Kelley Buechner of Milwaukee.
"That really upset Rigo," Ms. Buechner said in an interview at her home, using the family's nickname for Mr. Alpizar, a Costa Rica native who became an American citizen a few years ago. "Anne was robbed in Peru, and it was very unsettling to them both."
Mr. Tirpak, flying home from a business trip, said that as the couple waited to board Mr. Alpizar had begun singing the refrain from the old spiritual, "Let My People Go."
I have said - I've been known to feel stressed on flights myself, but not anywhere near this- that one of the most important things flights can do for security is to actually make people feel comfortable and relaxed.
And they generally don't. But I have found that we, ourselves, can do very much to help out others in this situation. Next time you're in an airport, here's an interesting meditative exercise: look at the looks on other people's faces. Just watch their looks. If this doesn't induce at least a smidgen of compassion - even out of the absurdity into which these people have been cast- well, I can't imagine it wouldn't. But watch what goes on in your mind as you watch these other people. That should unstress most folks, unless they're off their meds...
Chief Willie Marshall, who leads the Miami-Dade criminal investigations unit, said Mr. Alpizar had run off the plane and, while on the passageway, reached into a bag that was "strapped to his chest." That was when both air marshals opened fire with multiple shots, he said.
Chief Marshall said that homicide detectives had interviewed Ms. Buechner throughout the night and that she had told them her husband had received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder roughly a decade ago. "She provided us some very valuable information and insight about what was going on with her husband," he said. "She told us he had not taken his medication recently."
I had to read the above 2 paragraphs twice - maybe it's 'cause it's late at night- to figure out that Chief Willie Marshall was investigating marshals, and therefore, it was a quirk of fate that a Marshall was investigating marshals, and not that Willie Marshall was in fact a marshal.
Though Chief Marshall said the couple had been on a vacation, a neighbor described it as a missionary trip and said both were frequent churchgoers.
I do hope this guy didn't put away his meds because of some religious thing.
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