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SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal agents are investigating the background of a California man with a Yemeni passport who pounded on the cockpit door of an American Airlines flight as it approached San Francisco before a flight attendant tackled him, police said Monday.
Rageh Almurisi, 28, does not have any clear or known ties to terrorism, and investigators have not established a possible motive, San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.
Almurisi, of Vallejo, Calif., got up from his seat and went toward the cockpit door 10 minutes before the flight from Chicago was supposed to land on Sunday night, authorities said.
Almurisi was yelling unintelligibly as he brushed past a flight attendant on his way toward the cockpit, Rodriguez said.
A male flight attendant tackled him, and other crew members and passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a retired San Mateo police officer, helped subdue him as he banged on the door, police said.
"They were able to get him to the ground and a flight attendant put him in plastic handcuffs," Rodriguez said.
Andrew Wai, a passenger aboard the flight, described a chaotic scene, telling KGO-TV that passengers were screaming and crying. "Flight attendants were trying to soothe different passengers," he said. "We were all looking at our lives flash before our eyes."
Wai said Almurisi appeared "fidgety" when he saw him on the way to the bathroom earlier in the flight.
The Boeing 737 carrying 162 people landed safely at 9:10 p.m. and the man was taken into police custody. The flight came from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, authorities said.
The guy had no weapon and was no real threat. Yes, he obviously scared everyone on that plane, but the crew and passengers reacted by taking him down quickly. The job of the TSA is to make certain that nobody makes it on a plane with any type of weapon. They can't be expected to determine the mindset of every individual. TSA did its job, and the crew and passengers did theirs. I think most people that fly these days realize that in case of any threat on a plane, the best plan of action is to attack the individual from all sides and take him down as quickly as possible.
How dumb to blame TSA for this lunatic.
And gee another fucking Muslim who doesn't want to behave on a plane. Big surprise.
Bet if they'd start chucking these assholes off the plane at 30,000 feet they'd knock that shit off. Yes, I'm kidding, but only barely.
How dumb to blame TSA for this lunatic.
And gee another fucking Muslim who doesn't want to behave on a plane. Big surprise.
Bet if they'd start chucking these assholes off the plane at 30,000 feet they'd knock that shit off. Yes, I'm kidding, but only barely.
How dumb to read into my thread title and OP that I was blaming TSA. My point was towards those who find a prob with TSA agents but shit still happens if there were no TSA agents at all.
So how, despite a massive transportation and homeland security apparatus, did al-Murisi get into this country and get on a plane? He had no keys, no luggage, $47 cash, two curious posted checks totaling $13,000, and a trove of expired and current state IDs from New York and California where relatives said he had not notified them that he was coming. He is young, male, brought no family with him, had no job or other discernible income, and hails from the terror-coddling nation of Yemen. Yes, the same Yemen that is Osama bin Ladens ancestral home, harbors al-Qaida operatives who are burning the torch of jihad, and is deemed a special interest country whose citizens warrant increased scrutiny by DHS when they cross the border illegally.
As I reported last month, a federal watchdog revealed that TSAs counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports on at least 23 different occasions. Neutered by Islamophobia-phobia and an overtime over security mentality, our State Department consular offices and airline security bureaucracys stance toward the al-Murisis slipping through their snaking lines is:
Nothing to see here; move along.
