Marshals: Man made threats

According to a passenger, the man's wife said he had bipolar disorder.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A troubled passenger was fatally shot by federal air marshals Wednesday after saying he had a bomb in his backpack and as he charged off an American Airlines jet at Miami International Airport, federal officials said.
It was the first time marshals killed a passenger on or near a U.S. plane since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The passenger was identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, of Maitland, Fla., a U.S. citizen with no apparent terrorist motives, officials said.
Another passenger, Mary Gardner, told WTVJ-TV in Miami that the man ran down the aisle 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 her husband 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:
Alpizar had taken an American Airlines flight from Quito, Ecuador, to Miami, arriving early Wednesday.
After clearing U.S. Customs, he boarded American Airlines Flight 924, a Boeing 757 scheduled to depart from Gate D-42 at 2:18 p.m. to Orlando International Airport, near his home.
As Alpizar was getting on the jetliner, air marshals noticed he was acting strangely, walking aggressively.
Confronted by marshals
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.
"They came out of their cover and confronted him," Bauer said.
Alpizar attempted to flee, and some passengers reported seeing him run frantically up the plane's aisle.
The marshals chased him onto the jet bridge, connecting the plane with the terminal, and ordered him to get on the ground. Alpizar instead reached into his bag, and the agents responded with gunfire.
According to some passengers, four to five shots were fired. It wasn't immediately clear whether other passengers were on the jet bridge at the time.
Officials later went through the contents of the backpack and found no explosives, said Rick Thomas, the Transportation Security Administration's federal director at Miami International.
Bags, passengers removed
The Miami-Dade Police bomb squad unit also removed all the baggage from the aircraft, laying it out on the ramp, and inspected each piece, using bomb-sniffing dogs. They found no explosives.
After the shooting, heavily armed Miami-Dade Police SWAT team officers surrounded the jetliner. Police boarded the plane and told the passengers to put their hands on their heads, Gardner told the TV station.
"It was quite scary," she said.