I thought the idea was to terrorize large groups of people at once.
Maybe they changed their playbook?
You don't think that everyone in or near Montgomery County is afraid to go outside? I find the randomness of declaring open season on strangers quite terrorizing, and I am glad I don't live there.
Who knows? Since 9/11 we've heard speculation about bridges, dams, power plants, cropdusters, divers, and who knows what else. If these guys didnt have any more ideas of how to terrorize us after 9/11, the media was quick to give them a number of ideas.
There are a couple of points; neither the vehicle nor the perps have been ID'd yet, nor has the vehicle been spotted yet. Your run of the mill "disassembling" psycho would have been caught by now, or at least ID'd. If Mohammed drives and Omar shoots, they can exfil pretty quick without getting caught. The Police are saying it was two now. There have been nuts who worked in pairs, but this just strikes me different. I hate use this word, but professional is how it seems. The complete lack of an accurate description of the two is also telling. Just my opinion.
Kill a few, terrorize a whole city or region. Seems to be working pretty well. Although there might just be "Unintended Consequences" that the terrorists didn't quite anticipate.
Uh, the entire region is paranoid, and for good reason......I think this would be on the second or third page of their playbook..
I thought the idea was to terrorize large groups of people at once.
Maybe they changed their playbook?
It has terrorized large groups of people at once! Just hasn't killed large groups at once. But that has never been the main purpose of terrorism anyway. People are now afraid in ways they weren't before. A terrorist would have to call this a very successful operation.
The FBI and media 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 had been promoting is 1 driver, 1 shooter; then it was one angry white male before Baker was cleared)
(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).