Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

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Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

James Joyner | Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask (AP)

Osama bin Laden take note: You wouldn’t be safe in Costa Rica. A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaida leader, police said Tuesday. Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose.

Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized in stable condition. “For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun,” Sandoval told Channel 7 television.

Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defense.

Must have been some mask.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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