NYT: Air Marshals Tell of Burden in Reacting to Mental Status

New York Times
December 9, 2005

Air Marshals Tell of Burden in Reacting to Mental Status

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - Part of air marshals' training entails various
attack exercises in which actors portray "bad guys" of differing kinds,
including some who are mentally ill. But marshals say the mental status
of a person they must confront on the job may have little effect on
their response.

"In the street as a police officer, when you deal with an emotionally
disturbed person, you are taught to contain that person, to call for
emergency services and E.M.S.," said John Bottone, who formerly worked
as an air marshal after a career with the New York City police. "But
when you're in an airplane, you are emergency services, you are E.M.S.,
you are everybody. It's a whole different scenario you have to deal
with."

The marshals take a course called "Managing Abnormal Behavior" during
their preliminary training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center in Artesia, N.M., said David M. Adams, a spokesman for the
Federal Air Marshal Service. But several marshals said their main
training was in the attack exercises, some intended to help them tell
the difference between someone who is a real threat and, on the other
hand, someone who is simply under the influence of drugs or alcohol and
who may reach into a pocket to pull out something as innocuous as a
ballpoint pen.

In any case, discerning the finer points of a threatening person's
motivations is not always a top priority outside of training.

"I think there's a real fine line between somebody who is unstable and
unbalanced, and somebody who's really fanatical about his cause," said
one air marshal, recalling that the marshal corps existed in its
present size because there were people who had volunteered to fly
airplanes into big buildings.

Mr. Bottone said mental status could not have been the first concern of
the air marshals who shot an apparently bipolar man at Miami
International Airport on Wednesday.

"The federal air marshals weren't sitting there saying: 'Is this guy
straight? Is this guy bipolar?' " he said. "What they saw is a guy who
said he had a bomb, and it was a threat to kill them and everybody else
on the aircraft."

In fact, said Mr. Adams, the marshal service spokesman, concluding that
a person is mentally ill is not the same as concluding that he is
harmless.

"A mentally disturbed person could still have a bomb," he said. "Look
at the individual who shot President Reagan."

Since the increase in security after the terror attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, air travel has become much harder for the mentally ill, said Mary
T. Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center,
which lobbies on behalf of people with mental illness. Ms. Zdanowicz
said she had two brothers with schizophrenia, one of whom flew to
Washington from Boston soon after Sept. 11. Her brother did not
understand instructions to take off his shoes at the security screening
point, she said, and had trouble staying seated within 30 minutes of
landing, as was required for Reagan National Airport.

"I've not had him fly since," she said.

One problem, Ms. Zdanowicz said, is that a common tactic of law
enforcement officers is the wrong one to use with the mentally ill.

"Typically when they are trying to subdue someone whose behavior is
escalating, they pump themselves up, make themselves big, get in their
face and try to overpower them," she said. "That kind of behavior will
more often lead a person with mental illness to get worse."

After Wednesday's shooting, the National Alliance on Mental Illness
called on the Air Marshal Service and other law enforcement agencies to
review their training to determine if it is adequate. In August 2004,
the Homeland Security Department's inspector general found various
deficiencies in the air marshal program, including inadequate
background checks on the flood of new officers. Training problems were
also cited, although they did not involve lack of instruction in
detecting mental illness.

The air marshal program has had frequent changes in organization. After
the Sept. 11 attacks, thousands of marshals were recruited to flesh out
a skeletal organization that had been part of the Federal Aviation
Administration. The expanded program was run first by the newly formed
Transportation Security Administration and later by another Homeland
Security agency, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the
idea being that the marshals and the customs service could draw on each
other's personnel. But in October the program was transferred back to
the Transportation Security Administration.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/na...9marshals.html

wrote:

New York Times
December 9, 2005

Air Marshals Tell of Burden in Reacting to Mental Status

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - Part of air marshals' training entails various
attack exercises in which actors portray "bad guys" of differing kinds,
including some who are mentally ill. But marshals say the mental status
of a person they must confront on the job may have little effect on
their response.

"In the street as a police officer, when you deal with an emotionally
disturbed person, you are taught to contain that person, to call for
emergency services and E.M.S.," said John Bottone, who formerly worked
as an air marshal after a career with the New York City police. "But
when you're in an airplane, you are emergency services, you are E.M.S.,
you are everybody. It's a whole different scenario you have to deal
with."

The marshals take a course called "Managing Abnormal Behavior" during
their preliminary training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center in Artesia, N.M., said David M. Adams, a spokesman for the
Federal Air Marshal Service. But several marshals said their main
training was in the attack exercises, some intended to help them tell
the difference between someone who is a real threat and, on the other
hand, someone who is simply under the influence of drugs or alcohol and
who may reach into a pocket to pull out something as innocuous as a
ballpoint pen.



I wonder if any of the training for air marshals concerns
differentiating threats at 30 000 feet from threats when the plane is
stopped at a gate. No one has managed to destroy a building with a
plane parked at a gate. There can be a threat to the folks on the plane
but it is a limited threat.

Frank F. Matthews wrote:

I wonder if any of the training for air marshals concerns
differentiating threats at 30 000 feet from threats when the plane is
stopped at a gate. No one has managed to destroy a building with a
plane parked at a gate. There can be a threat to the folks on the plane
but it is a limited threat.

No, but building are destroyed by bombs even if they don't have gates.
Ask Tim McV.

So, how many people must considered to be in jeopardy before an air
marshal can fire his weapon? In my mind, that number would only have to
be greater than 0. In this case, I believe that number was exceeded,
since if he had a bomb, people in the building and on the plane could
have been in danger.

wrote:
Frank F. Matthews wrote:

I wonder if any of the training for air marshals concerns
differentiating threats at 30 000 feet from threats when the plane is
stopped at a gate. No one has managed to destroy a building with a
plane parked at a gate. There can be a threat to the folks on the
plane but it is a limited threat.


No, but building are destroyed by bombs even if they don't have gates.
Ask Tim McV.

So, how many people must considered to be in jeopardy before an air
marshal can fire his weapon? In my mind, that number would only have to
be greater than 0. In this case, I believe that number was exceeded,
since if he had a bomb, people in the building and on the plane could
have been in danger.



If you look back at the comment without snipping the context you will
see that it was a response to the description of the general training of
the marshals.

It was not intended as a comment on the case in particular.

Since you bring it up though I doubt that a reasonably trained police
officer who has worked with the mentally ill would have responded in the
manner described. I think that the training for the marshals needs
significant improvement in this area.

Nomen Nescio wrote:
Fired Cisco troll/netkook/pedophile/psychopath Michael Voight "mrtravel" trolled:


No, but building are destroyed by bombs even if they don't have gates.
Ask Tim McV.


Too bad the terrorists haven't blown you up. You are the most useless
piece of **** on the face of the earth.

Let's see.. I made a direct response to an on topic post.



You just posted six troll posts in a space of 15 minutes.

Which means you will crosspost to at least 5 others newsgroups multiple
times with the same dribble.

It was a discussion regarding the danger of having a bomb on the plane,
in a jetway, or in a building. My response seemed to fit in with the
last poster's comments. Your response fit in only in your mind.

My followup was posted to rec.travel.air. The ****head - You -
crossposted to an unrelated newsgroup.

Aren't you embarassed?
You're almost 50 years old, unemployed and unemployable for life, with nothing
better to do than troll usenet 24 hours a day. A normal person would be embarassed.
Then again, there's nothing normal about you:

Wouldn't it be more embarassing to follow this person around to see
where he is posting so you can post and crosspost your worthless
dribblings?

Frank F. Matthews wrote:

Since you bring it up though I doubt that a reasonably trained police
officer who has worked with the mentally ill would have responded in the
manner described. I think that the training for the marshals needs
significant improvement in this area.

How did they know he was mentally ill when they perceived a threat?

So, while someone is in a threatening position and maybe reaching into
his bag for a weapon, do you really have time to analyze him?

wrote:

Frank F. Matthews wrote:


Since you bring it up though I doubt that a reasonably trained police
officer who has worked with the mentally ill would have responded in
the manner described. I think that the training for the marshals
needs significant improvement in this area.


How did they know he was mentally ill when they perceived a threat?

So, while someone is in a threatening position and maybe reaching into
his bag for a weapon, do you really have time to analyze him?


Recognition signs are part of the training.

In article , Frank F. Matthews
says...



wrote:

Frank F. Matthews wrote:


Since you bring it up though I doubt that a reasonably trained police
officer who has worked with the mentally ill would have responded in
the manner described. I think that the training for the marshals
needs significant improvement in this area.


How did they know he was mentally ill when they perceived a threat?

So, while someone is in a threatening position and maybe reaching into
his bag for a weapon, do you really have time to analyze him?


Recognition signs are part of the training.



List these signs and how they present separately for a situation like this vs. a
terrorist action.

Please.

Banty

Frank F. Matthews wrote:



wrote:

Frank F. Matthews wrote:


Since you bring it up though I doubt that a reasonably trained police
officer who has worked with the mentally ill would have responded in
the manner described. I think that the training for the marshals
needs significant improvement in this area.



How did they know he was mentally ill when they perceived a threat?

So, while someone is in a threatening position and maybe reaching into
his bag for a weapon, do you really have time to analyze him?



Recognition signs are part of the training.



Are you suggesting that a mentally ill person can't be dangerous?
Recognizing someone is mentally ill doesn't mean they aren't going to
shoot him if he claims to have a bomb or reaches into a bag.