Posted on 12/11/2003 8:16:55 AM PST by flutters
Nervous motorists scanning the woods along I-270 could be looking in the wrong place for the south Outerbelt shooter.
Evidence suggests the shooter, in several of the 15 incidents that lawenforcement officials said are connected, might have fired from a vehicle, perhaps traveling in the opposite direction of the victims’.
Authorities also recently suggested an in-transit shooter.
"We don’t rule anything out, whether stationary or mobile," Franklin County Chief Deputy Steve Martin said.
Of the six reports with detailed information about the paths of the vehicle and trajectories of the bullets, each had been struck on the driver’s side. That would mean the closest shot would have been from another vehicle.
If the shots had come from a stationary position off the freeway, then the shooter repeatedly aimed past the nearest lanes of traffic and, in the case of those on I-270, shot across at least three lanes and the highway median.
Other information that could support the shots being fired from a moving vehicle include:
• A home and a school building were struck by bullets on their sides facing the road.
• A van shot while parked on the Pay Days used-car lot, 3408 S. High St., was hit on the side facing the road. The bullet recovered was fired from the same gun used days later to kill 62-year-old Gail Knisley, authorities announced Tuesday.
• One victim said that when his minivan’s window blew out on Rt. 23, he immediately suspected a shot from an oncoming vehicle as it passed. "I thought whatever happened came from that vehicle," said the victim, Edward Cable. "But there’s no way to know."
• Another victim said a federal agent told him he thinks his house in Obetz north of I-270 had been shot from a vehicle. "They don’t give you any certainties," Don Fitch said of the investigators.
• A laser that investigators shined Saturday through a bullet hole in the Obetz house on Lisle Avenue appeared to point to a guardrail on the opposite side of I-270, meaning the shot could have been fired from a car window.
• On Tuesday, a woman told police that someone pointed a handgun at her from another vehicle while she was driving on I-270 near Rt. 23.
The house and school, both of which were empty when they were hit, could have been struck by stray bullets fired at cars.
Publicly available information about the other shootings is too sketchy to know if they fit the pattern.
In an August shooting, a horse trailer apparently had been shot from above, and the victim reported seeing a group of juveniles standing on an overpass, one with a gun.
The last two shootings police have linked to the case took place Nov. 30. As of yesterday, six of the 15 being investigated have been positively connected with ballistics tests.
Yesterday at the daily news briefing, Martin said the task force had no new information to release but was following up on more than 1,600 leads.
Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call the Franklin County Sher iff ’ s Office at 614-462-4646.
Not getting all available evidence on a timely basis could cause a FReeper to go nuts.:O{
F,this info would put a number of handgun cartridges in our possibilities list.
The lady that had a flat and found a bullet inside the tire upon repair,weeds out some slower cartridges I think.
When a tire is spinning at hiway speeds,I don't think any of the "less powerful" handgun cartridges could penetrate.
I started researching a bit, and came across this article. It made my skin crawl.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/October/03_crm_589.htm
Really wish we knew the cal.It could give people an idea what to watch for.
One thing I'd watch for would be drivers or passengers wearing plugs or "earphones" in cars.
There are far too many survivors who would hopefully remember the color/make/presence or absence of other vehicles beside them whe they heard the thunk of the bullet hit.
Although it might add to their sick thrills, there is a very real possibility an adjacent driver, if hit, would swerve into their vehicle.
A malvo-type vehicle rigged as a blind could be part of the scenario, but would be most likely parked, on an overpass, aproach ramp, or frontage road, above road level. Without information on terminal trajectories (where the round went after it hit) it is difficult to do anything but speculate.
The direction of the bullet after the initial impact would tell at least some of where to look for the shooter(s), allowing to tell relative elevation, whether they were shooting toward the aproaching vehicle, side-on, or as it was traveling away.
Remember the lady who was killed in the passenger seat. The door entry hole was low and forward, it missed the driver and killed the passenger. This may indicate an upward traveling bullet based on the trajectory.
A gun could be rigged sideways in a trunk for example to fire through an aperature, similar to the way M&M fired from their trunk. The trunk acts as a sound suppressor. The driver doesn't need to wear earplugs, he just yanks a string or pushes a button.
Just a thought.
For example, the exact trajectory of the bullet that killed the lady in the passenger seat after passing through the low front of the driver's door. Hard to see how a rising shot came from a great distance.
Bulletproof Bug Bump !
Stay Safe !
I must be missing something. If the shooter was driving down the opposite side of the freeway, all he would have to do is roll down his window and shoot with a handgun. That doesn't sound conspicous to me.
Also, if the shooter is using a handgun from the opposite side of the freeway his closing rate on his target is something like 140 mph. Wpouldn't this contribute to the innacuracy?
Tracking a shooter Authorities fan out along closed part of Outerbelt, use laser to shed light on series of shootings Sunday, December 07, 2003 Michael Hawthorne and Encarnacion Pyle THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A red laser beam swept across a closed section of the south Outerbelt last night as lawenforcement officials tried to figure out where a bullet came from that killed a woman on Nov. 25.
Leading a procession of marked and unmarked cruisers was the white Pontiac Grand Am that Gail Knisley was riding in when she was fatally shot on I-270.
Just after dusk, a laser threaded through the bullet hole in the driver-side door beamed an eerie light into the woods just north of the highway between Rts. 62 and 23. By following the path of the light, investigators were trying to determine where the shooter had been.
As they moved east along the empty interstate, those on foot occasionally stopped and used flashlights to scour the woods and drainage ditches. Deputy sheriffs wearing camouflage scanned the area with night-vision binoculars.
Authorities refused to provide details of what they were doing, but reporters observed the slow-moving group of Franklin County, state and federal officials from the Gantz Road and Jackson Pike overpasses.
Authorities have said the bullet that killed Knisley came from the same gun as four other bullets — one shot through a window at Hamilton Central Elementary School, another through a house in Obetz and two that lodged in two other vehicles.
Authorities think a total of 14 shootings are linked.
After taking the unusual step of requesting the closing of the south Outerbelt, investigators used the same high-tech methods they employed Friday night at Donald Fitch’s house in Obetz, which was struck Nov. 30 or Dec. 1.
The beam from the laser poking through the bullet hole in a wall facing I-270 illuminated a spot about 180 yards away on the northernmost guardrail, Fitch said. Lawenforcement officials told him the shooter either was a passenger in a moving vehicle or a driver who stopped, parked and then took a shot.
"They believed it came from a car, a westbound car," Fitch said yesterday.
No one was home at the house on Lisle Avenue when the bullet tore through the wall.
Franklin County Chief Deputy Steve Martin said the test at Fitch’s house was still being analyzed, and he couldn’t give details.
Edward Cable, whose van was shot on Nov. 21 as he was driving south on Rt. 23 below I-270, thinks that bullet, too, was fired from a passing vehicle.
The bullet, which authorities have said came from the same gun as the one that killed Knisley, shattered the rear passenger window of Cable’s van and lodged in the ceiling on the opposite side.
The bullet struck just as a vehicle going north was passing him, Cable said last week. "I thought whatever happened came from that vehicle."
In other developments yesterday, about 40 law-enforcement officers went door to door in the Hamilton Meadows subdivision. Secret Service agents and U.S. marshals were among those who visited the 840 homes in the neighborhood just south of Hamilton Central Elementary School, which was hit by a bullet on Nov. 11.
"We believe the person or persons responsible knows the area, lives in the area," Martin said. "It lets the community know we’re serious about this investigation."
Temporarily closing I-270 caused no problems, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation.
ODOT closed the entire 23-mile stretch of the Outerbelt between I-70 on the western edge of Franklin County and I-70 on the eastern side, even though police investigated only a 4-mile section.
"We had to close it all to keep traffic flowing," said Michelle May, an ODOT spokeswoman. The highway was closed at 4 p.m. and reopened at 7:12 p.m. Martin asked whoever is responsible for the shooting to call the sheriff’s office tip line at 614-464-4646 or to mail a message to P.O. Box 360562, Columbus 43236-0562.
Law-enforcement officials aim a laser through a bullet hole in the Pontiac Grand Am that Gail Knisley was riding in when she was shot to death Nov. 25 on I-270. Officials closed part of the south Outerbelt last night to investigate a series of shootings along that highway.
I don't think so...
How would they see it unless the shooter was holding the handgun/rifle anyway?
If someone was holding a gun and aiming it, I'd think someone would sure notice that - wihout being told by the police/media what caliber bullet was used in previous shootings.
Unfortuntely, reavealing the caliber of the bullet would also tell a copycat what caliber to use - if they said (for instance) it was a .223, and shootings start up somewhere else, how would the police know if it was the same shooter or a copycat?
Also what if they said (for instance) it was a .223 - would that mean that anyone who knew of someone who owned an AR-15 / Ruger Mini-14 should call them in to the police as a suspect? Should sales of the caliber ammo being used in the shootings be suspended?
I don't think there is any benefit to letting out the caliber of bullet being fired at this point.
If those good citizens heard the caliber used was .XX, and that mildly suspected relative or aquiantence is known to have a gun in that caliber, then they make the call, and possibly the case is solved.
Remember the Unibomber was not nabbed by super sleuth FBI agent (who were 180* off in their profiling). It was solved by his brother, who had suspected him for a long time, and dropped the dime after the "recognition" was made from his published writings.
The caliber being announced could do the same thing.
I hope they stick some uranium under his cot. It sure worked well on Jack Ruby!
Keep all the good info flowing,flutters,you're doing a "great" job. :o)
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