In a story quick to point the finger of blame at federal officials for shooting mentally ill passenger Rigoberto Alpizar, Time Magazine quotes a passenger named John McAlhaney for the proposition that authorities overreacted, and that Alpizar had been behaving in a "normal" manner before the flight:

McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should be dead right now."

But look at what the same guy (McAlhaney) said in an earlier report:

Just before the shooting, passengers reported seeing the man running wildly down the aisle of the plane with a woman in pursuit yelling that he was ``sick.''

Passenger John McAlhany, in seat 24-C, said the man ``came running from the back. He must have been doing 1,000 miles an hour. He knocked over stewardesses.''

McAlhany, a Sebastian, Fla., construction worker on his way home from a fishing trip in the Keys, noticed the man acting erratically during the boarding process.

``When we got on the plane, he got off, then came back on with his wife,'' McAlhany said. ``He didn't look stable.''

(And how about knocking over stewardesses while "doing 1000 miles an hour"? Is that normal too?)

In light of what he said about the "normal" passenger, I'm also having a bit of trouble understanding his statement (quoted in Time) about being ready to "break somebody's neck":

By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots."

McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.

"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."

I think the overall flavor of the McAlhaney remarks bespeaks hyperbole, and I'm wondering why Time magazine is putting so much stock in them.

Aren't there any other passengers?

MORE: USA Today reports that Alpizar told a fight attendant that he had a bomb.

Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, made the bomb threat after a flight attendant blocked him from exiting Flight 924 just minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave for Orlando, said Lonny Glover, national safety coordinator for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

"As the man came forward it was obvious that he was upset," Glover said. "That's when one of our attendants at the front of plane told him, 'Sir, you can't leave the plane.' His response, she said, was 'I have a bomb.' It was at that point that the air marshals gave up their cover and pursued him out the door and up the jetbridge."

Sigh.

Interpreting the news can be a challenge.

AND MORE: In a Newsday account, another passenger named Jorge Borelli is quoted as saying that Alpizar "never said a thing":

"I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane. He never called out he had a bomb," said Orlando architect Jorge A. Borrelli, who helped comfort Alpizar's wife after the gunfire. "He never said a word from the point he passed me at Row 9. . . . He did not say a word to anybody."

Two teens seated in Row 26 agreed. So did Jorge Figueroa, a power-plant operator from Lakeland seated a few rows behind first class.

....

"I heard very clearly, 'Stop!' and about four to six gunshots," Borrelli said. "At that point the flight attendants started screaming, 'Get down! Get down!' "

Buechner turned back toward the front of the aircraft and tried to get to her husband. But another passenger -- a doctor -- restrained her, with help from Borrelli and a flight attendant.

"She was saying, 'My husband's sick. He's sick. He's bipolar. He didn't take his medicine. It was my fault. I made him get on the plane. You know, we just came from a medical mission. Oh, my God; they've killed my husband!'" Borrelli said.

"And she said to the small group of us kind of huddled around her, holding her, that -- I believe she said -- that he feared there was a bomb on the plane. . . . I think he was having a panic attack."

My hearing is pretty good, but when I'm on a plane I have a lot of trouble hearing what people are saying unless they're right next to me. I don't know where Mr. Alpizar was seated, but unless it was right next to Mr. Borelli, how would he be able to confidently state that Alpizar never said a thing?

I don't know whether a story like this depends on the facts or whether the facts depend on the story, but it's quite frustrating.

AND MORE: I have no way to evaluate this, but another passenger is quoted as hearing Alpizar sing "Go Down Moses":

MIAMI - The passenger shot to death by air marshals in Miami had been agitated before boarding the plane and was singing "Go Down Moses" as his wife tried to calm him, a fellow passenger said Thursday.

"The wife was telling him, 'Calm down. Let other people get on the plane. It will be all right,'" said Alan Tirpak.

"I thought maybe he's afraid of flying," Tirpak said.

MORE: A Pajamas Media story reiterates the "Go Down Moses" part, cites conflicting accounts, and adds another witness, Mary Gardner:

McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker who was returning home from a fishing trip in Key West, said he was sitting in Seat 21C when he noticed a commotion a few rows back.

"I heard him saying to his wife, 'I've got to get off the plane,'" McAlhany said. "He bumped me, bumped a couple of stewardesses. He just wanted to get off the plane."

Alpizar ran up the aisle into the first-class cabin, where marshals chased him onto the jetway, McAlhany said.

McAlhany said he "absolutely never heard the word 'bomb' at all."

"The first time I heard the word 'bomb' was when I was interviewed by the FBI," McAlhany said. "They kept asking if I heard him say the B-word. And I said, 'What is the B-word?' And they were like, 'Bomb.' I said no. They said, 'Are you sure?' And I am."

Added another passenger, Mary Gardner: "I did not hear him say that he had a bomb."

Well, if the "commotion" was "a few rows back" from row 21, I don't see how the passenger in row 9 could have heard anything. (I'd have to listen pretty hard to hear even a passenger behind me on an airplane.)

Whatever else turns up, I think it's a serious mistake to conclude that not hearing something means that it wasn't said.