Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Air Marshal Program Under Lens After Passenger Shot: 12/12/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec05/airmarshals_12-12.html

Initiating Questions:

1. How has flying on an airplane changed since Sept. 11? What has been your experience?

2. Who protects you when you fly?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What recent event involved air marshals in the news? What happened?

The air marshals shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar, a U.S. citizen traveling on an American Airlines flight from Colombia that landed in Miami on Dec. 7.

According to the marshals, Alpizar, who was wearing a backpack on the front of his body, said he was carrying a bomb. He left the plane and entered the boarding bridge between the parked aircraft and the airport gate, refusing to drop to the ground and appearing to reach into his bag.

No explosives were found on the aircraft. Alpizar's backpack, which authorities blew up at a safe distance, also contained no explosives. The two air marshals involved, who remain publicly unidentified, were placed on paid leave, a standard practice, according to the air marshal service.

2. According to the story, what might have been troubling Rigoberto Alpizar?

Witnesses said Alpizar's wife, Anne Buechner, tried to explain that he was bipolar, a mental illness also known as manic-depression, and was off his medication. Some passengers said Alpizar appeared agitated before he got on the plane.

3. How many air marshals are there? What do they do?

After 9/11, the number of air marshals went from around 30 to several thousand. The Transportation Security Administration won't say how many are currently working, but the TSA does say the service received more than 200,000 applications "overnight."

Many air marshals come from a law enforcement background.

Deployed undercover and never alone on flights around the world, air marshals are supposed to detect, deter and defeat hostile acts that target U.S. airplanes, airports, passengers and crews, according to the air marshal service Web site.

4. How are air marshals trained to deal with imminent threats? How often does this happen?

Held to a higher standard for handgun accuracy than any other federal law enforcement officers, air marshals are trained to shoot to kill, not maim or injure, if they think there is an imminent threat.

"The bottom line is, we're trained to shoot to stop the threat," John Amat, vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, told the Associated Press.

The shooting in Miami was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that a marshal had fired a weapon while on duty.

5. What kind of training do air marshals receive? How have the actions of the particular air marshals involved been perceived?

Air marshals must attend a training course in Atlantic City, N.J. They study behavioral observation, intimidation tactics and how to use self-defense in close quarters, such as an airplane.

No serious questions have been raised about the actions of the air marshals who killed the passenger last week.

"From what we know, the team of air marshals acted in a way that is consistent with the training that they have received," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters.

6. What criticisms do some aviation safety experts have regarding the training of air marshals?

However, some aviation safety experts question the kind of training that air marshals receive, especially as it has undergone such rapid changes since Sept. 11.

"There's a lot of stuff that they really never had the time to think through, so they're always trying to tweak it. When you do that, it can cause confusion, morale problems, and some people lose faith in the system," Rich Gritta, an aviation expert at the University of Portland in Oregon, told the Christian Science Monitor.

7. What are some recent changes occurring in airline travel? How might they impact the work that air marshals do?

Air safety experts also worry that two recent airline changes could also impact air marshal training: the decision to soon allow passengers to carry certain sharp items like scissors aboard planes, since cockpit doors are now reinforced, and rising incidents of unruly passengers and air rage.

"If somebody shows up with a knife and is going to stab a flight attendant or start stabbing themselves, do we shoot them?" said Andrew Thomas, an aviation security expert at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):

1. Do you agree with David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association who said, "This is a reminder they are there and are protecting the passengers and that it is a seriously deadly business?" Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.

2. Why is air travel important? If Americans didn't feel safe flying, what would happen?

3. According to the article, much about being an air marshal remains classified or a secret. What about the job is secret and why do you think this is? What are the benefits and challenges of such a system? Would you change anything based on what you know about their jobs?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.