Moose: Can't Communicate Electronically with you

Fox News ^ | 10/22/00 | Fox News

[Koblenz]

Mr. Moose just held another news conference. Said the Police Department couldn't communicate electronically with the sniper in the manner he requested. What a mess.

The police said call back to get an 800 number or a PO Box.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

Numbered Swiss Account??? They keep those pretty secure. That is if it is even a wire transfer they're talking about (and who the hell knows?, this is all 99 parts fog to one part fact).

[WestCoastGal]

Part of the LA Times Article re: broken English..so it's possible this guy is a foreign terrorist.


"The person you called could not hear everything you said," Moose said in a televised plea late Monday afternoon. "The audio was unclear and we could not get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand."

Moose and other investigators would not divulge their discussions with the killer. But several officials and former police investigators described the hidden dialogue as a fragile dance designed to draw the sniper out and learn more about his mental state, while scrutinizing his letter for any traces of physical evidence that might be used to track him down.

"They're trying any way they can to kick this investigation up to the next level," said Joe Vince, a former chief of the Crime Gun Analysis Branch at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Writer Makes Demands

The letter was found behind a Ponderosa steakhouse parking lot about 50 feet from where the victim fell. The note contained demands for dialogue with police and several threatening passages, said an official involved with the task force. Authorities were convinced soon after studying the letter that it was genuine and decided during a high-level meeting Sunday to open communications with him.

"They're confident this is the guy," the official said.

Federal agents said the letter was "very lengthy" and poorly worded, bordering on broken English. Officials would not speculate whether the wording indicated whether the writer was a native English speaker or foreign-born.

Authorities close to the task force also said the letter contained unspecified threatening language about children — a warning that appeared to have played a role in prompting school officials in Richmond and surrounding suburbs to cancel classes Monday.

[DaughterofEve]

LOL....well, in general.....YEAHHHHH! But leave Moosie alone, he's having a heck of a time.

[Lokibob]

Hey, I just asked the question.

[cherry]

PLEASE....SOMEONE TELL ME THAT WE ARE NOT SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING PAYING THE SNIPER OFF?????

[Joe Hadenuf]

Yes, there are plenty of people out there that could conduct themselves more professionally and more importantly, publicly project themselves in a much more credible manner than Moose.

Moose is lacking in many respects. And he is not the only one. As I have seen a few others since this happened on the east coast, that have also displayed a lack of professionalism.

It's OK to criticize, don't be so thinned skinned and PC.

[Dog Gone]

The Swiss agreed to cooperate with banking information where there was evidence of criminal wrongdoing. In this case, it would be a no-brainer, even for them.

If I'm not mistaken, they also agreed to help with information regarding tax evasion a couple of years ago. It's not quite the financial haven it used to be, it seems.

[DaughterofEve]

WE ARE NOT SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING PAYING THE SNIPER OFF.

[justlurking]

what is ROT-13?

It's a simple substitution cipher:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefgjijklm

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Gur dhvpx oebja sbk whzcrq bire gur ynml qbt.

ROT is short for "Rotate", and -13 means substitute the 13th character after the plaintext character. Since there are 26 characters in the alphabet, two rounds of ROT-13 yields the original plaintext.

[RightFighter]

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone suggest that the reason Chief Moose has been on television so much is that the sniper dictated that Chief Moose is the only person he wants to talk to. Since all of the recent press conferences have been attempts to communicate with the sniper, Chief Moose has been the designated speaker.

That said, I'm a little disappointed in all the negative attacks on the Chief here on FR. Until you see or gain knowledge of him doing something wrong in THIS CASE, give the guy a friggin' break. Clearly, lots of law enforcement resources are dedicated to capturing this sniper, and yet he hasn't been caught yet. I can't blame that on Chief Moose any more than I can blame George Bush that they haven't caught Osama bin Laden yet. Both men are doing their best in trying times. I may not agree with Chief Moose politically (I really have no idea what his politics are) but he seems like a nice enough man, and he has been thrust into a situation that was not of his choosing. He is doing an admirable job of attempting to appease the media's thirst for information, calm fears, and catch this rotten bastard all at the same time. For that, I'll give him credit. Any of you that think otherwise, so be it, but anyone who's making fun of him because of his name or his speech patterns is just plain wrong.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

"Words mean something...... "

A PHD should be able to recite a few lines without a card. He never looks up while he talks and sheepishly walks away waiting for a new card from the people in the back room.

[Dog Gone]

PLEASE....SOMEONE TELL ME THAT WE ARE NOT SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING PAYING THE SNIPER OFF?????

Think about it. Talking with the sniper is the best way to learn more about him. We don't gain anything by paying off a murderer, unless we want to entice future murderers.

[TheExploited]

Dirty Harry: "We're not going to play this Creep's game, are we? Let me meet up with the SOB!"

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

wow, that's pretty cool. thanks.

[hole_n_one]

If the motive is money, why would he (they) wait until 12 shootings later before stating their reasons and demands?.......

Why not after the 4th.....5th.......6th.......7th.......?

[Laverne]

hear hear (or is it here, here!) Which-ever, I agree with your comments.

[blueriver]

The question really is, are your city officials (where you live) up to the task any more than those in Virginia and Maryland?

Does anyone know why this is not under the jurisdiction of homeland security?

[TheLurkerX]

You tell them that someone will withdraw the funds, and if they are not allowed to leave without molestation, the shootings will continue. After the money is transferred to some third world hell-hole, the bagman takes off into the crowd and disappears like a rat into the sewers. We'd know who's behind it finally, but it wouldn't do us any good if we had to let their pickup guy go. They'd never meet the demand though. There's absolutely no guarantee the shootings wouldn't continue anyway.

[JRandomFreeper]

See post #189 for a better explanation. I had a fence post error in my explanation.

/john

[GovernmentShrinker]

The Swiss have reformed. And besides if our guys really wanted to send him the money, they're perfectly capable of setting up a numbered account in the U.S. (they do it with awards for crime tips all the time), from which the perp could have the money wired out to a bank in some shady Arab country, which would in turn (in about 2 seconds) wire it in pieces to several other banks, which it would then refuse to identify. The money is picked up at those banks, which may have no idea where it really came from, as it was wired into the accounts of existing customers.