Police told suspects black from very 1st shot fired! (D.C. SNIPER TERROR)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- D.C. SNIPER TERROR Police told suspects black from very 1st shot fired Eyewitness to Michaels store window shooting also described getaway car

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 28, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

ASPEN HILL, Md. – Just hours after the Beltway snipers shot out a crafts store window here, kicking off a three-week rampage, a pizza delivery man on shift next to the store told local police he saw two short-haired black males leave the scene – laughing and "high-fiving" each other – in a dark, older-model car, WorldNetDaily has learned.

Yet the sniper task force, led by Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, ignored the early eyewitness account and focused instead on a white suspect in a white vehicle, according to MCPD investigators, who are now speaking out about what they call racially correct "tunnel vision" during the nation's largest manhunt.

The snipers shot out a window at a Michaels craft store here in Aspen Hill at 5:20 p.m. on Oct. 2. About 45 minutes later, they shot and killed a 55-year-old man in a grocery store parking lot in nearby Wheaton, Md. He was the first of the snipers' 13 victims.

Suspecting the Michaels shooting was connected, one of Moose's homicide detectives canvassed the shopping center there, a senior investigator says. He took a statement from a Papa John's Pizza employee working two doors down from Michaels, who said he heard the rifle report and turned to see "two black males with short hair" driving slowly away in a dark-colored "beat-up vehicle," the source said.

The witness told the detective the men were "laughing and high-fiving themselves" as they left the parking lot, according to the investigator, who requested anonymity. The car then sped up as it exited the parking lot, as if "fleeing the scene," as the witness reportedly put it.

The detective filed a written report with headquarters, but the eyewitness statement was buried, department sources say.

The manager of the Papa John's store in Aspen Hill yesterday confirmed that one of his drivers, Steve Cribbin, witnessed the snipers leave the parking lot the evening of Oct. 2.

"He said he heard the shot and he saw a car kind of speeding out of the parking lot," manager James Colston told WorldNetDaily.

John Allen Muhammad, 42, and Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, both black, were arrested in the murder spree on Oct. 24, while sleeping at a rural Maryland rest area. They were in a dark blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice.

Some Montgomery county police officers charge that Moose was reluctant to release the suspects' race throughout the manhunt, because he had agreed with the Justice Department to end racial profiling in the county in 2000. Moose, who has blamed "systemic racism" for what he calls an "overrepresentation" of blacks on death row, also ended racial profiling in Portland, Ore., when he served as that city's police chief.

"Moose didn't want his officers stopping every black in Montgomery County," said one officer who worked on the investigation. "Of course, it was OK to stop every white in a white box truck."

The officer, who wished to remain nameless, says he knows that Moose personally was aware of the descriptions of Muhammad and Malvo as early as Oct. 21, the day before they took their last victim, a bus driver in Aspen Hill.

"Once he had the info, he didn't disclose it, and Conrad Johnson, the last victim, was killed," he said.

Moose has been working closely with Johnson's family to lobby state lawmakers for even tougher gun laws in Maryland.

Moose was positive enough about at least Muhammad's identity that he secretly dispatched a team of undercover agents, led by a Special Investigations Division commander, to stake out Muhammad's ex-wife's house two days before he was captured, as WorldNetDaily first reported. Moose swore the agents to secrecy, and he didn't release a look-out bulletin for Muhammad or Malvo with their physical descriptions for another 24 hours.

Police union officials recently complained in salary arbitration hearings with the county that Moose jeopardized investigators' and patrol officers' safety by withholding the descriptions, as WorldNetDaily also exclusively reported.

"Shame on him. Shame on him and everyone else who knew the look-out and kept it from investigators and patrol officers," another officer said in an internal police department e-mail obtained by WorldNetDaily. "Thank the heavens God was looking out for us, because Moose and his cronies were not."

A Montgomery County ethics panel ruled last week that the 49-year-old chief cannot cash in on his role in the sniper manhunt with planned book and movie deals.

Moose did not respond to both verbal and written requests for an interview, which were made before he was called early last week to active duty with the U.S. Air National Guard.

Interesting article from yesterday's Washington Times --

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

Civil rights bias
Edward Blum and Roger Clegg
Published March 27, 2003

     Ever since it began insisting that the only way to stop racial discrimination is through the use of racial preferences, consistency has never been a strong point for the civil-rights establishment. To see this, one needn't do more than compare "Wrong Then, Wrong Now: Racial Profiling Before and After September 11, 2001"— a report just published by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) with the position the organization is taking in the University of Michigan affirmative-action cases, which will be argued before the Supreme Court Apr. 1.
     "Wrong Then, Wrong Now" endeavors to compare the old-fashioned, street cop–type of racial profiling with the post-9/11 profiling of Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners. The Leadership Conference is against both, and there is no logical inconsistency with that. But, that's not what's remarkable about the report. What is remarkable — and foolishly inconsistent — is the contradiction between the civil rights establishment's opposition to the use of race by law enforcement agencies to prevent crime or terrorism, on the one hand, and its adamant support of universities using race in admissions, on the other.
     The contradiction is most glaring in the report's own definition of profiling: "Racial profiling is any use of race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin by law enforcement agents as a means of deciding who should be investigated . . . . Under this definition, racial profiling doesn't only occur when race is the sole criterion used by a law enforcement agent in determining who [sic] to investigate . . . . Selective enforcement based in part on race, is no less pernicious or offensive to the principle of equal justice than is enforcement based solely on race."
     Fair enough. According to the definitions set out by the Leadership Conference's own report, race should never be a factor a law-enforcement officer takes into account when attempting to prevent crime or terrorism. Police can't dodge the fact that they are discriminating by arguing that race is "just one of the factors" they consider in deciding whom to pull over.
     Yet, compare this position with the stance the Leadership Conference took in a friend-of-the-court brief filed at almost exactly the same time with the Supreme Court. The cases there challenge the use of race in university admissions at the University of Michigan. The brief says: "LCCR support the use of race as one factor in admissions policies to preserve diversity in the nation's colleges and universities." It furthermore states, "At the University of Michigan and elsewhere, race is only one of many factors considered in admissions decisions. The court should be loath to constrain education professionals in making these important decisions, particularly when those decisions have a reasoned, empirical basis."
     Confused? Join the club.
     The Leadership Conference is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It is saying that university educators can use race as one factor among others in admissions because, in its view, that helps minorities. But cops and homeland defense officers should never use it as a factor in their line of work, because, in its view, that hurts minorities.
     It's no wonder so many ordinary citizens are exasperated about the civil rights establishment's views on race and ethnicity. Is race something we are supposed to pay attention to or ignore? Regardless of how the Leadership Conference tries to argue for both sides, it doesn't work.
     Consider what happens if you follow their reasoning: If race can be one factor among many in college admissions, then why can't race be one factor among many during the sentencing phase of a criminal trial? After all, African Americans statistically have higher recidivism rates than whites. Why can't race be one factor among others used by credit officers in assessing who's eligible for a loan? Default rates for blacks are higher than for whites, after all. From these real-life situations, it is a short hop to questioning why race can't be just one reason among many for a restaurant owner to refuse service to a group of somewhat rowdy teen-agers, who just happen to be black. It's a slippery slope, and the best way to stay off it is to refuse to allow race to be considered in any of these situations.
     If the Supreme Court takes the advice of the Leadership Conference and adopts the "one-factor-among-many" approach to school admissions, it will usher in another generation of racial confusion and polarization, to say nothing of litigation.
     Either race tells us something significant about an individual, or it doesn't. If law enforcement agencies can't use race to prevent crime or terrorism, then neither can universities use race to achieve racially proportionate student bodies.
     It's that simple. The Leadership Conference can't have it both ways.

     Edward Blum is a senior fellow and Roger Clegg is general counsel at the Center for Equal Opportunity in Sterling Virginia. (www.ceousa.org)

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