<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Bouncer:
Hypothetical:
You are not armed and have no body armor but you are an FAA employee. You have no radio or police backup within sight. I would like you to go verify the identity of an *armed* man who you *know* is carrying a pistol. Be advised, that if he is NOT who he says he is, then he is very possibly an EXTREMELY lethal threat.
No offense, but I'd have pretty strong reservations about doing any such thing, and I've physically taken down armed people before. If you expect some non-combatant, non hand-to-hand trained FAA line personnel to do this you're asking an awful lot. The response was slow in coming, but the decision NOT to confront directly was, in my view, probably the correct one.
[This message has been edited by Bouncer (edited 02-08-2002).]</font>
Much better said than my attempt!
I'm thinking of my friend, an FAA supervisor who is responsible for some kind of runway equipment.. no training in anything remotely aimed at this situation. She's going to walk up to some guy w/ a gun and detain him??
That being said, I don't know really from reading the article what the FAA staffer did, in fact, do. I'm just making the point that I don't think it was necessarily his/her responsibility to correct this siutation on the spot.