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***Profiles of Those Killed***(A must read!)
FOXNews ^ | 10/13/02 | Associated Press

Posted on 10/13/2002 6:26:53 PM PDT by MVV

Edited on 04/22/2004 12:35:00 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia; US: Maryland; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: killings; sniper
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Thank you FoxNews!
1 posted on 10/13/2002 6:26:53 PM PDT by MVV
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To: mickie
FYI!
2 posted on 10/13/2002 6:27:48 PM PDT by MVV
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To: All
What fine Americans these were! God bless them and their grieving families.
3 posted on 10/13/2002 6:29:11 PM PDT by MVV
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To: MVV
James Buchanan was also the son of a retired Montgomery Police Officer. I think its possible that Mr. Buchanan just may have been a targeted assassiantion. I suggest they check with his father for someone that may have had a vendetta against him/the father.
4 posted on 10/13/2002 6:29:42 PM PDT by ET(end tyranny)
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To: ET(end tyranny)
Wow! I didn't know that. Thanks.
5 posted on 10/13/2002 6:31:16 PM PDT by MVV
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To: MVV
Ditto, Agreed! But I do not feel the shooter (s) terrorists did anything but willy nilly shoot up's and I believe they are of a OBL cell.
6 posted on 10/13/2002 6:33:10 PM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
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To: MVV
I understand that the father of six, from Philly, was shot in the back.
Breaks my heart.

Yellow-belly cowards.....whoever they are, may they rot in hell forever!

7 posted on 10/13/2002 6:33:34 PM PDT by mickie
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To: MVV
This is just heartbreaking. Prayers for all these victims and their families. We can only hope that much progress has been made over the weekend in finding the perpetrator(s). I can't even think of a punishment that would be fitting for whoever it is. Nothing that my mind can come up with would be severe enough. And I cannot comprehend what type of person could be this evil, except for Muslim terrorists. I'm sure there are some, but I know where my bets are placed.
8 posted on 10/13/2002 6:37:33 PM PDT by MagnoliaMS
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To: MVV
Buy a lottery ticket and the odds against your winning are millions to one. Throw a dart against seven or eight americans and this is what you get. Good people, family people, hard working and fun loving people. How sad to lose them. How lucky we are as a nation.
9 posted on 10/13/2002 6:38:56 PM PDT by billhilly
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To: MVV
Behind every random death is an epic senslessly ended. Oh, the damage done by this insane monster.
10 posted on 10/13/2002 6:40:17 PM PDT by zarf
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To: All
God Bless these people and families.
The sharp shooter is simply showing that he is smarter than law enforcement agencies. for one reason or another he needs to prove that he is smarter. maybe he was turned down for a job, lost a job, etc. as far as being a "sniper" goes -- any farm boy, or hunter can make those shots with ease. i would guess that the white van is a part of the decoy being used. think about it, what better way to hide than to always make sure you have a white van around. there are thousands of these deliveries trucks on the street daily. i suspect he will never be caught, but will fade away after a final hit on a very important person as kind of a final signature.
11 posted on 10/13/2002 6:40:38 PM PDT by www.corvettewave.com
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To: MVV
Oh Man! A summation of one's life in one sentence. Makes one think how one's own life would be summed up!

Want to give it a go?

(I don't!)

12 posted on 10/13/2002 6:40:42 PM PDT by realpatriot
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To: MVV
It's in a CNN article. I've been keeping an html file, on what I think is happening. I had wondered about 'some' targeted assassinations. When that one came out, I felt another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

GeorgetheDragleore(sp) had posted a link to a message forum where an article/letter to law enforcement was posted.

Couple of excerpts from the letter:

With a rifle, I can hit a man-sized target at 800 yards. At shorter distances, in the blink of an eye, I can hit a head-size target with a handgun........

But I know you. I know your uniform, your car, and your work schedule. I know where you work, and where you live.....

We are resourceful. We understand weapons and tactics.....

If you don't succeed in the long run, and you won't, here's what you can expect:

Ambushes of SWAT teams; the wholesale slaughter of all the jack-booted thugs who have murdered innocent Americans on the orders of their socialist masters; targeted assassinations and kidnappings of anti-Constitution judges; assassinations of anti-American, anti-gun politicians."

Some of the replies to the letter:

"Yes, Mr. Leo, we DO know where you and your family / friends live. And I have a great memory when it comes to treasonous creeps with silver badges."

That fits in with two other posts:

-- Posted by DOC on 7:23 am on June 2, 2001

I've spread it around!
You should see the looks! Like a Fart in Church!
TOO BAD!
I've said all along "Dear Mr. Policeman: I know where you live, where your wife shops and where your kids go to school. Have a nice day!

-- Posted by Az Redneck on 3:35 am on June 21, 2001

Do ya'll remember Detective Mark Fuhrman during the OJ Simpson trial? (He's the one who lied about saying the "N" word)...Remember what he said? "Out there I AM God!"....

ALL cops think alike. Those who don't, quit.....

end of excerpts:

Perhaps these things are all just coincidences, then again, maybe not.

13 posted on 10/13/2002 6:46:17 PM PDT by ET(end tyranny)
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To: MVV
Both the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star have written excellent articles in the last week capturing the local impact of the shootings. Here's one from yesterday.

Oct 12, 2002

Snapshots of death

Nine days of bloodshed claim eight lives in Va., Md., D.C.
BY JERRY SCHWARTZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Editor's note: A look at how the horror surrounding the sniper shootings has unfolded, shot by shot, day by day. There was nothing powerful about the sound. It was, an assistant store manager says, something like a light bulb popping.

And there was nothing cataclysmic about the damage - just a small hole in the display window, about the size of a marble.

It was 5:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 2, and an epic nightmare was beginning.

But no one knew it - no one, that is, except the person who fired the rifle into a busy Michaels crafts store at the Northgate Plaza shopping center in Aspen Hill near Rockville, in Montgomery County, Md.

No one was injured or killed by the single rifle blast. But then the sniper's aim turned deadly.

. . .

It is 6:04 p.m., 44 minutes after the shot pierced the store window. James D. Martin is in the parking lot of the Shoppers Food Warehouse in Wheaton, a mile away from Michaels.

Martin, 55, a program analyst for a federal department, has been shopping. But not for himself: He is buying stuff for the kids at Shepherd Elementary School in Washington.

People in his department at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations serve as mentors there, and Martin is devoted.

The lot is full - cars are waiting in line for spaces - but the report of the gun resounds over the sounds of idling engines. Across the street, officers at a district police station jump to their feet and out to the street, looking for the source.

But some shoppers are unaware. One walks by, assuming the figure on the ground is merely a motorist working under his car. When the officers find him, they perform CPR, but to no avail.

Martin - Civil War buff [Fox News edited this out], ardent volunteer, father of an 11-year-old son - is dead.

This alone is a peculiar thing for this community. Montgomery County is not to be confused with the neighboring District of Columbia. It is Maryland's most affluent area - "violent crime is not regarded as a serious problem," says the county Web site.

. . .

At 7:41 a.m. Thursday, the sky is a brilliant blue. James L. "Sonny" Buchanan cuts the grass at the Fitzgerald Auto Mall on Rockville Pike in the county's White Flint area.

Buchanan, 39, is a poet, a self-employed landscaper who likes to teach children about plants. He has moved to Virginia and a Christmas-tree farm he owns with his father, but he still comes back to Maryland and mows the grass for the dealership, as he has for 10 years.

There's a loud sound - like a huge object hitting the ground, thinks body-shop manager Gary Huss. Outside, Buchanan stumbles 200 feet into the lot and collapses, face forward.

A hundred dealership employees surround the bleeding man. They, too, react to murder with disbelief - surely, the lawnmower exploded.

When the ambulance arrives, about 10 minutes later, emergency workers find the hole in his chest left by the bullet.

Thirty-one minutes later, Prem Kumar Walekar, 54, fills the tank of his cab at the Mobil station on Aspen Hill Road in Rockville. He immigrated 30 years ago and worked hard all his life to raise his two children, now in their 20s, to help his family back in India, and to bring his siblings to the United States.

He does not usually take to the road this early, but the day is beautiful, and he wants to finish early and enjoy the sunshine.

Police Cpl. Paul Kukucka is nearby, driving to the funeral of a fellow officer who died of a heart attack, when a woman runs toward him, her arms waving.

"This man has just been shot! He's bleeding!" she shouts.

Kukucka runs to the pumps and finds Walekar, blood flowing from his chest, dying.

A little more than a mile away, in front of a post office in Silver Spring, a Salvadoran immigrant sits on a metal bench and reads.

Sarah Ramos was a law student in her native country. Now, at 34, she is a housecleaner, waiting for her ride to work. The shot, like all the others, comes from nowhere. It passes through her head and into the Crisp & Juicy carryout restaurant behind her.

"She was sitting on the bench, just sitting there," says a witness, Dolores Wallgren.

It is 8:37 a.m., and three people have died in the past 56 minutes.

. . .

With horrible and abrupt clarity, the police realize they are in the middle of a massacre.

The brass convenes at the Mobil station to plot the next move. They would send every officer available to patrol the area, ordering them to wear their bulletproof vests. Park police, state police, police from surrounding areas all are drawn into the maelstrom.

There is one clue: According to a witness to the Ramos shooting, two men in a white "box truck" with black lettering sped away from the scene. All across the area, police stop and search white delivery vans.

But they cannot protect Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, the mother of a preschooler. She pulls her burgundy minivan up to a Kensington Shell station's coin-operated vacuum, removes her daughter's car seat and begins to clean her car.

At 9:58 a.m., a single bullet strikes her, knocking her to the ground.

Mechanic John Mistry is working nearby under the hood of a car when he hears the loud "crack." An electrical short, he figures. But when he looks up, the lights are still on.

Mistry and fellow mechanic Jimmy Ajca run out of the garage to find Lewis-Rivera under her van door, blood trickling from her mouth.

Nor can police protect Pascal Charlot. The handyman, 72, is gunned down while standing on Kalmia Road and Georgia Avenue in Washington, half a block from the border with Montgomery County.

It is 9:15 p.m. In a little more than 27 blood-soaked hours, six people have been killed - each apparently with a single, .223-caliber bullet fired at long range, each for no apparent reason.

. . .

That Friday, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose appeals for an end to the murders. "We implore him to surrender, stop this madness," he pleads.

But the shootings do not stop. Instead, they spread to other places.

At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4, a 43-year-old woman from Spotsylvania, Va., the mother of two young sons, is parked in front of the Michaels craft store in Fredericksburg, 50 miles south of Washington. She has made her purchases and is loading her champagne-colored Toyota minivan.

The bullet hits her in the lower right side of her back, exits under her left breast and is embedded in the rear of the minivan. Miraculously, her vital organs are spared. "She's very lucky," says Maj. Howard Smith, of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office.

She is the first to survive this rampage. Police will not give her name; there are fears that her safety is still in jeopardy.

On Saturday, nothing. On Sunday, nothing.

On Monday, a 13-year-old pupil at Benjamin Tasker Elementary School in Bowie, Md., changes his daily routine, and he almost pays for it with his life.

Normally, he attends a prayer service at a neighbor's house before taking the bus to school. But on this day, he skips the service, and his aunt drives him to school. As he walks to the front door, he crumples to the ground, shot once in the chest.

His aunt is a nurse. She scoops him up and drives him to the hospital. He survives.

And this time, the gunman leaves a message. A police search of a wooded area 150 yards from the school turns up a .223-caliber shell casing and a tarot card - the Death card.

On it, someone had written this:

"Dear policeman, I am God."

People are unnerved by a villain who seems to be everywhere, all-powerful and invisible.

Adults find themselves looking over their shoulders as they scurry about, nervously doing chores that once entailed no risk.

"You think you're safe, but you're only as safe as your next step," says Sharon Healy, whose son, Brandon, attends school at Tasker.

On Wednesday, Dean Harold Meyers stops at the Battlefield Sunoco station, seven miles south of Manassas, Va. He is 53, a project manager and design engineer from Gaithersburg, Md., who has worked for the same engineering firm for 20 years.

He finishes filling the tank. He prepares to return to his black Mazda. There is a shot. It is 8:15 p.m., and Meyers' body of lies crumpled on the station's concrete floor.

And then yesterday, a little more than 25 hours later, another death: a man, gunned down at yet another Virginia gas station.

RTD

14 posted on 10/13/2002 6:56:11 PM PDT by Ligeia
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To: www.corvettewave.com
You could very well be right,

A co-worker dicussed that this may be some assassination of some type, and that he may work along Viers Mill Road...In Wheaton.

they take weekends off apparently..ever notice this????
15 posted on 10/13/2002 6:57:50 PM PDT by Astro Boy
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To: mickie
I understand that the father of six, from Philly, was shot in the back.

Haven't they all been shot in the back, or been rear head shots, except maybe the victim sitting on the bench at Leisure World? At least some of the others were but I don't remember for sure. I think that's part of the MO. Shooting in the back would be the easier hit (as opposed to shooting in the side, which some say is also a more survivable hit since the shot is likelier to hit bone first) and front shots would risk a surviving witness.

16 posted on 10/13/2002 6:58:08 PM PDT by pttttt
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To: MVV
Bump for later reference.
17 posted on 10/13/2002 7:00:01 PM PDT by RAT Patrol
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To: MVV
Here's the link to the CNN article

James Buchanan

James "Sonny" Buchanan was known as a man with a big heart who was always ready to help others.

The 39-year-old son of a retired Montgomery County police officer was an active volunteer at the local Boys and Girls Club. He was an amateur poet and taught children how to garden.

"Sonny was the dad to literally 400 kids. He came to the club two or three times a week, helped with homework, etcetera," said Gregory Wims, a friend and fellow volunteer at the club.

Buchanan used run a landscaping company but had gotten out of the business. He was mowing the lawn of a former customer's car dealership near Rockville, Maryland, early on October 3, when he was shot in the chest and killed.

18 posted on 10/13/2002 7:02:31 PM PDT by ET(end tyranny)
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To: www.corvettewave.com
I agree with most of your post except the statement that he will never be caught. If this a guy that is trying to prove he is smarter than the law enforcement agencies he most likely wii continue and will up the ante as he goes. The shell casing may represent a deliberate clue. I expect this guy to continue until he makes a mistake. That is the pattern of most serial killers.
19 posted on 10/13/2002 7:06:16 PM PDT by CharacterCounts
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To: MVV
Has Eric Rudolph been heard from since he disappeared a few years back???
20 posted on 10/13/2002 7:10:54 PM PDT by kwyjibo
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