Newsstand - Air marshals halt passenger on Seattle flight

An ex-convict on a Honolulu-to-Seattle flight charged toward the cockpit, shouting that he wanted to see the pilot, and was subdued by undercover air marshals who were on board to monitor him, officials said.

The man was identified as Reno Maiava, 33, of Seattle. He was released from prison two years ago after serving 10 years for his role in a much publicized spree of beatings of gay men in Seattle in 1990.
...

Adams described Maiava as having a history of violence and mental problems. A Department of Corrections spokesman in Olympia said Maiava had spent much of his prison term in a "special-needs" unit for people with mental-health problems.

...

Adams said a federal air marshal identified himself and told the 5-foot-11, 215-pound Maiava to put his hands behind his head. Maiava refused, and the other two marshals then identified themselves.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001809109_passengerarrested06m.html

> marshals on board to monitor him

My goodness that seems extravagant, allowing him to fly and sending monitors along with him.

Sylvia

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SylviaCaras:
&gt; marshals on board to monitor him

My goodness that seems extravagant, allowing him to fly and sending monitors along with him.

Sylvia</font>

Well, the only alternative would be to block him from flying based only on his history, and that would be.. (ta da) a violation of his civil liberties. We don't do that.

So, like El Al, who increases the number of marshalls when a potentially threatening person is on the plane, our databse system allowed us to identify him as a threat. At that point, our air marshall system allowed us to have people in place to prevent him from disrupting the flight and injuring others.

There is a lot of security going on that you really don't hear much about unless something happens.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Felix Unger:
Well, the only alternative would be to block him from flying based only on his history, and that would be.. (ta da) a violation of his civil liberties. We don't do that.

So, like El Al, who increases the number of marshalls when a potentially threatening person is on the plane, our databse system allowed us to identify him as a threat. At that point, our air marshall system allowed us to have people in place to prevent him from disrupting the flight and injuring others.

There is a lot of security going on that you really don't hear much about unless something happens. </font>

I am not half as familiar with law enforcement efforts as I am with intelligence efforts. On the intelligence front, however, I have seen mucho stupidity and foolishness (in many corners of the world) as of late, and these shortcomings are not because people are stupid and/or their hearts are not in the right place. The leadership is messed up and messsed with (politically), focused on the past, over-reliant upon technology, and too mistrusting and exclusive (on the wrong bases). Also, there is a sort of unspoken lie -- namely, that no root cause analysis can help in significantly diminishishing the international political terrorism threat.

This story is several weeks old. There is an earlier thread on it (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum109/HTML/007633.html).

[This message has been edited by xyzzy (edited Jan 02, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by xyzzy:
This story is several weeks old. There is an earlier thread on it (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum109/HTML/007633.html).

[This message has been edited by xyzzy (edited Jan 02, 2004).]</font>

You are right, and I didn't see that. Sorry.

There are so many air marshall intervention stories I get confused about which is which at times.