Chief Moose deploys his uniformed officers and plaincloths detectives around the County to set a trap for the Sniper.
Posted on 10/21/2002 5:15:20 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Police investigating the Washington area sniper shootings are using the media to issue cryptic messages in an on-going attempt to contact the shooter or someone with knowledge about the crimes.
At a televised news conference Monday, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said an unnamed person had tried to contact police but the message was garbled. Chief Moose urged that unnamed person to call back so, in the chief's words, "we can clearly understand."
Chief Moose declined to answer questions about the message or two others he issued earlier today and Sunday.
Meanwhile, police say they have found no evidence linking two men arrested near a Richmond gas station earlier Monday with the sniper attacks.
Law enforcement officials say the men are illegal immigrants from Latin America who may have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are now facing deportation on immigration charges.
In other developments, Virginia police say ballistic evidence from Saturday's sniper shooting links it to 11 others in the Washington area over the last three weeks. Nine people have been killed and three critically wounded. Each person was struck down by a single shot from a rifle firing a two-23-caliber high-powered bullet.
Doctors say the 37-year-old man wounded Saturday is in stable, but critical condition. The bullet was removed from his abdomen late Sunday.
The chief surgeon says the bullet tore through the victim's stomach and several organs, and that he will need several more operations.
In Arlington, Virginia, a memorial service was held for another sniper victim, Linda Franklin. The 47-year-old FBI analyst was killed last Monday at a shopping mall in Falls Church, Virginia. She had survived breast cancer and was awaiting the birth of her first grandchild when she was gunned down while shopping.
A) The sniper/killer/shooter, has been trying to communicate with LE for a while now.
B)For what ever reason it is not clear to LE that he is trying to communicate with them.(he left the Tarot card at the school shooting, telling them not to release it to the media, and yet they did.He had to call the Ponderosa to tell them were to find the message, even though they had searched the very area.)
C)Several hundred local,and state Law Enforcement officials, several hundered if not a thousand, Fed Law enforcement,CIA and Pentagon thinkers, have no idea what is going on in this shooters mind.
D)This thing is no closer to being over than it was two weeks ago.
E)No matter who this shooter(s) turn out to be; he(they) are re-writting the book on criminal mind behaviour.
Garbled--or in broken English--or in another language altogether?
Source? If true it opens up the possibility that the note was left after they had searched the area. , which in turn means that it might not have been the shooter, but rather a free lance scammer trying to make a megabuck. OTOH, maybe the searchers were so intent on searching the ground, they never looked at the trees. One source, on abcnews.com, I think, indicated that the envelope was attached to a tree.
Garbled--or in broken English--or in another language altogether?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that they tried to trace the call, weren't able to make the trace and are asking the sniper terrorist for a "do-over" ...
The thing is, despite the "takes three minutes to do a trace" nonsense they keep showing in the movies (because the "chase to trace" is more suspenseful than reality), modern phone systems are computerized and the phone companies have complete records of what calls were placed from what phone, where and when.
A "trace" can be done after the fact, just by calling the phone company, proving you're a law enforcement officer with a legitimate need to know, and having them look the call info up on their computers.
This isn't like the old days where a technician would have to manually follow the electromechanical switch trail through the innards of a wiring behemoth before the call ended.
I don't, but it seems to me that Moose does..
I would also bet that the Tarot card is not the only communication from the shooter.(the Police admitted the Tarot cards message was not to be revealed to the press. I think they learned to keep a lid on it after that bungle).
Whatever this shooter wants to happen is very complicated, and the authorities are having a hard time responding to him.(I find it interesting, that this afternoon, the Presidents spokesman, stated that the Whitehouse was in contact with the investigation, and giveing it it's full support).
What ever is going on; the public is sure being kept in the dark.
Consider this, the sniper knows that the police are looking for a white van with a ladder rack, and happens to notice, while on stake out for a potential hit, that a van fitting the description, regularly stops and uses a payphone that is in his stakeout area. So he feeds the police with that phone number and waits for them to make asses of themselves...
Someone should check with the arrested illegals as to if they use that phone on a regular basis
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