Trigger happy or acceptable loss?

I don't know what to make of this "Passengers describe wife's desperation" headliner.

Looking at it one way, it was trigger happy federal agents gunning down a mentally ill man first, and asking questions later. The guy clearly wasn't acting like a terrorist. Terrorists usually don't have wives running around after them shouting that they are mentally ill. And usually terrorists don't announce that they have a bomb and then not make any demands. There's the madness of suicide bombers, and then there's stark raving insanity of mental patients. I think the difference is clear. Maybe the feds are wearing bigot-colored glasses, through which Hispanics and Arabs are the same shade of "brown"? Would they have shot him if he was white? I strongly suspect not.

On the other hand, the shooting wasn't completely unjustified. The feds had to make a split second decision - delaying to consider the situation could have resulted in dozens of deaths. That is, if he was really a terrorist, which he wasn't.

Let me ask this - since September 11th, I know of two innocent people shot by police who mistook them for terrorists. How many actual terrorists have been shot by police? As far as I know, none. It may be gruesome, but someone is going to have to decide what ratio of civilian casualties we're willing to accept.

So far, the 2/0 ratio doesn't bode well, although i admit it's too early to tell. But I don't think the war on terror is a license to kill anyone who doesn't act the way society expects.