Costa Rica Seeks Answers Over Shooting
Costa Rica will seek an explanation from US authorities over the killing of a Costa Rica-born man by US air marshals on a plane in Miami, President Abel Pacheco said yesterday.

Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, was shot dead during an incident on a plane at Miami International Airport yesterday, apparently after shouting out that he was carrying a bomb.

Mr Alpizar, 44, was born in Costa Rica but moved to the United States 20 years ago.

"We are going to request an explanation, but we know they are going to respond that the United States is a country threatened by terrorism and that the man said that he was carrying a bomb," Mr Pacheco told the Monumental radio station.

"It was a painful event, but you have to understand the level of paranoia under which the Americans live regarding terrorism," the president said.

Town shocked by news of their good neighbour.

They called him Rigo, speaking in whispers and shock outside a home illuminated by television lights and sudden national attention.

To neighbours, he was a jogger, an immigrant, a cyclist, a loving husband. He was the man who always waved hello.

And to the frightened woman talking through a mail slot in a red door, Rigo was her "darling son-in-law". She slid out his photograph, showing a smiling Rigoberto Alpizar against a star-filled background.

In the hours after Mr Alpizar's name flashed across television screens, friends, neighbours and family members struggled to understand how someone so nice could be the same man who authorities said claimed to have a bomb at the Miami airport.

"I can tell you he was very proud to be living in America," said his brother-in-law Bradley Jentsch, from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. "He was very, very proud to become an American citizen and to vote."

He and Anne Buechner, his wife of more than 18 years "regularly jogged and rode bicycles together through their Maitland neighbourhood".

"He always said, 'Hi, how is your day?" said Alex McLeod, 16. "He was always nice."

Reports that Mr Alpizar was mentally ill puzzled longtime neighbour Louis Gunther. The friend he knew never showed any signs of a mental illness or aggression towards anyone.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Mr Alpizar and his wife left on a trip sponsored by their church to work with children in Colombia, said Mr Gunther, who was taking care of their house while they were gone.

The couple made regular trips to Mr Alpizar's childhood home in Costa Rica after the death of his mother to spend time with his ageing father, Mr Gunther said.