"Profilers: Montgomery County Shooters are Likely From Area"

WUSA 9 News, Associated Press ^ | October 4, 2002 | The Associated Press

[Hail Caesar]

Profilers: Montgomery County Shooters are Likely From Area

Whoever killed five people with single shots in Montgomery County is probably a white man in his 20s or early 30s who lives nearby, two former FBI profilers said Thursday.

The shooter and an accomplice likely dumped the white truck police were looking for Thursday night, the experts said. "That vehicle will be in a garage or a lake," said Clinton Van Zandt, a former FBI agent.

Both Van Zandt and another former profiler, Robert K. Ressler, said it's unlikely that one person carried out the killings. They said one person was probably the shooter, while the other drove the truck.

The two suspects are "giving themselves high-fives" as they shoot victims in a Columbine-like spree that Van Zandt said won't end until they're caught.

"They're moving - they like it," he said. "This is emotional heroin for them."

Ressler likened the spree to that of Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of fashion designer Gianni Versace and four other people. Cunanan died in an apparent suicide as police cornered him on a Florida houseboat in 1997.

"You're dealing with not a serial killer, not a mass murderer, but a spree killer," Ressler said.

Serial killers go though "emotional cooling-off periods" that could span days or even months. In this case, the killings were only hours apart.

The pair could be fugitives in their mid-to-late 20s or early 30s, with nothing to lose, Van Zandt said.

"One or both of these guys feel they've been ditched by the world," he said. "This is 'get-even,' this is 'level the playing field,' this is 'sharp stick in the eye."'

He said the suspects are also probably from the Montgomery County area, either living there, working there or with family connections to the area.

Both experts said crimes like this are generally solved by eyewitnesses or friends who notice that the suspects have disappeared.

"There are people out there right now who have suspicions," Van Zandt said.

[leadpenny]

Ohhhhhhh.... NOW we can do racial profiling!!

< / sarcasm >

The FBI had offered this profile early yesterday AM. Throughout the day I kept hearing the police chief saying he was reluctant to make public or issue a profile of the suspected shooter(s). I couldn't help but think that the PC authorities do not want the tables turned on them in future daily crimes. After all this is Montgomery County; an extension of "limousine liberal territory" of NW DC.

[tomkat]

these idiots couldn't find their ass with both hands ...

[tomkat]

i've not been up long, so am way behind the curve here,
but welcome to FR - one of the few good reasons for the internet ...

[cb]

I agree with you, but it is NOT true that it didn't happen in Texas. About a year or so ago, several people were randomly killed in gas stations and parking lots in DFW area. The killer was caught on security cameras and eventually caught. No connection to islam....just another form of whacko. Got the death penalty I believe.

[FreedomPoster]

The shooter(s) used .223 caliber bullets,

Do you have a source for this?

[FreedomPoster]

MSNBC just reported a national law enforcement APB for a "Robert Gene Baker", a white male, "drug user" suspect with ties to "militia" and "white supremacist" groups. He is reported "missing" and "armed and extremely dangerous."

Maybe not. On one of the other threads, someone reports that the local Fox report says they're no longer interested in Baker.

[FreedomPoster]

And a follow-up comment - if these are pros (Islamic terrorists), a "found" .223 case could easily be a red herring.

[Travis McGee]

I'm saying his profiles are totally "pre 9-11" and do not account for Islamikazi motivated terror cells being activated. His profiles are all based on the psychology of American perps.

[Freee-dame]

'evil doers'

Evil doers sure works better than "gentlemen."

[archy]

Isn't Van Zandt the standard obfuscator for the bureau

Don't FBI agents use .223 caliber M16 and M4 rifles?

-archy-/-

[AdA$tra]

L - I - B - E - R - A - L

My Gosh: Not the "L" word.

[junta]

First privately you should disabuse yourself of all the nonsensical egalitarian superstitions, perhaps publicly they serve a purpose, they just bore me. "Stereotype" only becomes so if it contains some element(s) of truth and profilers must logically look towards tendencies and patterns that might lend themselves to being called stereotypes by those less concerned with inquiry.

[templar]

I never said that.

Point noted, an my assumption withdrawn. Thanks for the correction. Embarassed apologies.

[Hail Caesar]

Perhaps you should "disabuse yourself" (your words) of your own misplaced notion of white superiority. Your elitist sarcasm may actually be quite entertaining if only not so indicative of your true motives thinly veiled in your postings.

[CyberAnt]

Isn't there a huge Muslim community right across the street near Arlington, VA???

Have they thought of looking there??

It's a "closed" community. Very scary!! They could be hiding these people.

[pttttt]

This FBI disinformation seems to be assuming multiple fictoids for which there is no apparent basis for believing:

(1) it was a random/spontaneous crime
(2) exactly or no more than 2 people were involved
(the model they seem to be promoting is 1 driver, 1 shooter)
(3) ethnicity/gender of the shooters (white male - the old gun nut fictoid and standard liberal demon)
(4) suggestions that the shooting was done from a vehicle, probably the famous white box truck
(5) one shooter (in several of the cases there appears to have be ballistic evidence of one gun; that doesn't mean one shooter).

There is no known basis for concluding any of the above. On the other hand, here are some things which there is some basis for considering:

(1) Similarity to other crimes. Has there ever been one quite like this? I don't know of one.

(2) Prior planning. There had to be some, if only to pick out shooter positions for long-range shots in a populated area. These couldn't have been impulse killings. They also do not give any indication of being rage killings.

(3) Strategy. There appears to have been one, at least with one shot, one kill, move on, avoid being caught. The shooter team wasn't wandering around babbling at the crime scenes. They were apparently out of there in any identifiable way after the one shot, suggesting tactical discipline. Possibly there have also been aborted attempts and misses. They also seemed to know where to go fast to find more targets, suggesting earlier planning.

(4) Attributes of the victims. These were not completely random and show some indication of target selection and therefore a tactical plan. The victims were all the easiest possible "grazing deer" type targets for a sniper: close to streets and relatively stationary in one place, either sitting, standing, or occupied with some task. This suggests that the shooter/s wanted to - and knew how to - ensure sure one-shot hits and kills. No walkers, joggers, or frisbee players appear to have been hit, nor was anyone actually in a vehicle, though some were close. (Maybe if you live in that area you should avoid things like standing on the street waiting for a bus or trimming the grass around your mailbox. ) For whatever reason, several visible and potentially vulnerable population groups were not hit: e.g. children and uniformed people and there is no indication they were shooting into crowds. The people who were hit were generally working and shopping civilian adults.

(5) Coherent operations. These guys were/are very, very "good". By their very stealthiness, the shooter team indicates a high degree of professionalism. These aren't bozos. They know how to shoot, they apparently know the roads and spots in the area, they know that multiple jurisdictions create confusion and they know how to avoid leaving evidence or being conspicuous (not an attribute of nuts on a crusade) or even seen hanging around. A possible exception to this is the oddly conspicuous and now famous white box truck, which may have been a diversion.

Bottom line: I would be inclined to think someone with resources, support, infrastructure (e.g. with safe houses and escape routes out of the locality and country), and an agenda is behind this. The angry white-male gun-toting nut idea already doesn't fit what is known about it. So it could well be a terrorist probe. They would have found out how a multiple-jurisdiction area responds, how long it takes to come up on the scope as an attack (too long), what the police can do about it (zip), how the populace responds (people don't feel safe in places where they used to), and how the news media treats it (delays in alerting the country or putting it on national news).

[Hail Caesar]

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS! You must have read my mind. :-)

[Hail Caesar]

...however...the emasculated "angry white male" profile - professional shooter or not - still tops the "A" list of probable suspects in this case, IMHO.

[pttttt]

Thanks, also thanks for your original post. I forgot to mention: the first reports of this that came out on Thursday (the first hit was Wednesday night; the first I heard of it was Thursday afternoon, so it took that long for this to register widely as an attack) repeatedly and wrongly referred to the homicides as "drive-by shootings", not usually characterized by one-shot kills. But there was never any indication that they were that, whereas the sniper scenario did become clear early on.

[Hail Caesar]

FYI, as a local community leader here I'm well acquainted with the neighborhoods where all of the crime scenes are located. That's another reason why the sniper scenario jumped right out at me after the fifth murder that very same morning. I'm also a member of the local government committee that monitors "hate violence" concerns in this county, terrorism related or not.

IMHO, the media mishandled their initial reporting of the string of shootings that morning. They misidentified a couple of the victims, then, (mainly) described the shootings as "spree killings", "bullet spraying", "possible assault weapons used", etc., etc.