West Virginia Police Probe Possible 4th Shooting

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Reuters) - Authorities pursuing a possible serial sniper in three West Virginia convenience store murders on Thursday investigated a report of shots being fired at a fourth location, police said.

A 16-year-old girl told investigators she heard a bullet whiz past her head at a Go Mart gas station convenience store near Charleston at 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday. She said the shot may have come from a maroon pickup truck.

There were no injuries and police could not confirm that a shot had actually been fired.

Soon after that report, a Kanawha County sheriff's deputy saw a pickup truck speeding down a nearby highway and gave chase but lost sight of the vehicle, police said.

Police have spent days searching for a dark-colored pickup truck, possibly a Ford F-150, which witnesses say they saw at the scene of two fatal convenience store shootings on Aug. 14 with a large white man behind the wheel.

Ballistic tests show both victims -- Jeanie Patton, 31, and Okey Meadows, 26, of Campbells Creek -- were killed at different locations by the same .22-caliber weapon.

A third victim, 44-year-old Gary Carrier, died four days earlier at a convenience store in Charleston. But tests have yet to show he was shot by the same weapon.

Police said the murders of Patton and Meadows could be drug-related and want to question a tall white man with a beard, who is not considered a suspect.

Here is some interesting information I found over at a site called North Bridge Training (www.northbridgetraining.com) that was posted regarding the DC area "sniper" shootings but most is relavent to the current shootings in WV also: Much of the reporting on the Beltway Killer has contained numerous technical inaccuracies regarding firearms. While primarily due to the reporter’s unfamiliarity with firearms rather than any intended bias, certain inaccuracies lead to inadvertent but serious distortions of the story. For example, media articles often report the killer as striking from a long distance using a high-powered assault rifle. In fact, the killer appears to be striking from a very short distance using a low-powered common rifle. In an effort to clarify some of the unfamiliar aspects of firearms and assist in accurate reporting that best serves the public, we have prepared this media fact sheet.

FACTS ABOUT THE WEAPON USED AND SHOOTING TECHNIQUE

THE ROUND
Ballistic information has apparently led the police to believe the killer is using a .223 caliber cartridge (5.56mm in metric), which is commonly used in rifles – although it is also used in some large handguns. All rifle cartridges are more powerful than smaller handgun rounds. However, the .223 is not a high-powered cartridge – rather it is the lowest power cartridge in large-scale commercial use. By comparison, the 30-06 (pronounced “thirty aught six”) cartridge, the round fired by the rifle Sarah Brady bought her son for Christmas of 2000 (described in her book “A Good Fight”), is over twice as powerful and can penetrate approximately 18” of oak. The .223 is used primarily to hunt small (rabbit-sized) game and is illegal for hunting large animals in many states because it is not sufficiently lethal to reliably kill the game. The United States military uses the military equivalent, the 5.56mm round, in its rifles. Our military chose this round specifically to wound, rather than kill, an enemy - wounded soldiers require care that consumes an enemy’s battlefield resources. The Beltway killer is so lethal because he or she is shooting at close range, not because he or she is using a large round.

THE RANGES
The killer appears to be shooting from 30-150 yards (essentially, across a parking lot). While long for small handgun range, this distance is very short for rifle shooting. Military snipers usually shoot from 300 to 1000 yards. Rifle enthusiasts usually shoot around 200 yards and up. Police snipers, who shoot at much shorter distances, are the only group of trained shooters who regularly shoot rifles in the 100-150 yard range. A competent instructor can teach any previously untrained reporter to make shots similar to those the killer is making with an hour of instruction – see this story on Fox News in which reporter Alisyn Camerota, who has never fired a rifle before, makes a head shot at 25 yards on her first shot before receiving any instruction whatsoever:

THE WEAPON
The killer’s weapon is often described as possibly being an “assault rifle”. However, it is highly unlikely that the killer has access to an actual assault rifle. An assault rifle is a military rifle capable of firing more than one round when the trigger is pulled – essentially a light machine gun. What the media often terms “assault rifles” are the semi-automatic commercial versions of military rifles. Like all other semi-automatic rifles, they fire one round every time the trigger is pulled. They may look like assault rifles, sometimes prompting the designation “assault style rifle”, but there is no mechanical difference between a semi-automatic rifle with “assault style” cosmetic features and a semiautomatic hunting rifle. The correct designation for such a rifle, regardless of what it looks like, is a “semi-automatic rifle”. Further, there is no indication that the killer is using a semi-automatic rifle. Bold-action and single-shot rifles in .223 caliber are readily available and more common, and the killer has to this point never fired more than one round. Also, several long pistols fire the same round, also accept telescopic sights, and would produce similar results at the short ranges the killer is striking at.

FACTS ABOUT THE KILLER’S SKILL AND “SNIPERS”
The killer’s shooting skill is not unusually good. Shooting from a prepared position with a rifle, almost anyone who has had basic instruction can accurately hit a target at the short ranges the killer strikes from. However, the killer’s skill at planning the attacks, hiding the weapon, and escaping without notice are unusual and it is these skills that make him or her such a fearsome criminal. Real military and police snipers, who shoot for a living, are highly offended to be associated with the Beltway area killer. Actual trained snipers belong to a highly skilled subset of shooters and are capable of much more demanding shooting than the Beltway killers have used. Like black belt martial artists, they have invested great effort to acquire great power, and their ability is tempered with great responsibility. Military and police snipers shoot as a last resort to save the lives of innocent civilians or the soldiers behind them, not to wreak terror. They find referring to the Beltway area killer(s) as a “sniper” to be as offensive as referring to the September 11th hijackers as “pilots”.

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