more on the shoebomber in-flight saga
Airborne struggle with Reid detailed
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, 6/12/2002
Almost half the passengers aboard the Paris-to-Miami flight swarmed terror suspect Richard C. Reid in the narrow aisle of the American Airlines jetliner, creating near pandemonium, according to the chief flight attendant, who described the effort to subdue the alleged would-be bomber during a federal court hearing in Boston yesterday.
Hours after Reid was lashed to seat 29J, chief purser Carole J. Nelson testified, Reid begged her for water and then lunged at her with his teeth while she held a plastic cup to his lips, displaying almost no ill effects from two sedative shots he'd been given by a doctor on board.
Nelson described a chaotic scene aboard the Boeing 767, with nearly 100 passengers clambering toward Reid after he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his shoes.
Nelson said she had to climb over seats to bypass passengers and get to Reid, who she said was struggling ''like a wild animal'' and had already bitten another flight attendant. Standing on the seat in front of Reid, Nelson recalled, ''I told him to keep his mouth shut. He was wild. He had wild eyes.''
In the first courtroom testimony in the case, Nelson, who has been a flight attendant for 30 years, shed light on Reid's state of mind during the Dec. 22 Paris-Miami flight that Reid allegedly tried to blow up. The plane was diverted to Logan International Airport
after Reid was restrained.
Nelson's description evoked a man who boarded the flight calmly, bent on fulfilling what he described in an e-mail to his mother as a mission in the war between ''Islam and disbelief.''
When the mission turned sour, however, the tall British passenger who had greeted Nelson politely at the airplane door morphed into a writhing captive who ''locked that attacking glare'' on everyone who came within his view, Nelson said. It was like ''Jekyll and Hyde,'' Nelson said.
Her testimony came in a pretrial hearing for Reid, who has been charged with attempted mass murder and eight other counts for allegedly trying to blow up the plane, which had 197 passengers and crew aboard.
At the hearings, which are expected to last three days, federal public defender Owen S. Walker is arguing that investigators violated Reid's rights in two interrogations immediately following his arrest.
Walker wants Reid's statements to investigators thrown out as evidence because Reid had been sedated during the flight and had not properly consented to be interviewed by federal agents.
Reid's initial statements to investigators could prove vital to the government's case, and prosecutors are opposing Walker's motion.
In a separate action yesterday, Chief US District Judge William G. Young dismissed the only one of the nine counts against Reid brought under the antiterrorist USA- Patriot Act, passed in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The charge - attempting to wreck a mass transportation vehicle - is not valid because an airplane is not a vehicle under the new law, Young said. His ruling leaves intact the other counts, five of which carry possible life sentences, and doesn't change the possible penalty Reid faces.
Reid, his hair now cropped short and his beard and mustache neatly trimmed, listened intently yesterday as Nelson told how passengers lashed him to his seat and held him by his then-long hair until the plane landed.
When Reid boarded the plane, Nelson said, he spoke to her politely and took his seat. Three hours into the flight, however, a flight attendant alerted Nelson by intercom that a passenger was lighting matches.
''As I approached I heard screaming and a flight attendant was yelling she had been bitten,'' Nelson said. By the time Nelson had pushed through the crowd of passengers, a group of flight attendants and passengers had subdued Reid.
One flight attendant bound Reid's feet to the seat legs with seat-belt extensions; another bound his hands with plastic handcuffs. Reid's torso was tied to the seat with belts joined together. A passenger identified only as Marco held Reid by the hair.
Flight attendants told Nelson that Reid had refused all food and drink, except water, during the flight. ''He was acting up; he was moving around even though he was restrained,'' Nelson said.
Under cross-examination, Nelson said she told two medical professionals on the plane, identified by an FBI agent as a doctor and a dentist, ''Just sedate him. Don't kill him.''
The doctors injected Reid in the stomach with two sedatives, less than half an hour after he had been restrained.
An hour later, with two passengers standing guard, Reid ''was rocking his head back and forth, his lips were moving like he was saying verses or a prayer,'' Nelson said.
He asked for water, and she brought him a plastic cup and held it to his lips, Nelson said. But after taking a few sips, she said, he suddenly lunged at her. Marco grabbed Reid by the hair and snapped his head back.
''I was dismayed that he didn't have any symptoms of being given two drugs,'' Nelson said. He was then given a third injection.
Reid appeared shocked and did not respond when a flight attendant spoke to him in Arabic, Nelson said. He told one flight attendant he was English, another that he was Sri Lankan, and a third that he was from Jamaica.
Despite a total of three injections, Reid walked off the plane unassisted. ''He wasn't slumping, he wasn't staggering,'' Nelson said. ''He appeared totally in control of himself.''
After his arrest, Reid spoke for several hours to FBI agents, who interrogated him again the next day. FBI agent Charles Gianturco testified yesterday that he informed Reid twice of his right to remain silent, and that Reid appeared alert, cooperative, and
willing to talk to investigators.
The doctors who injected Reid, and several more federal agents, are expected to testify today as the hearings continue.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 6/12/2002.