Posted on 10/03/2002 11:45:15 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Though al-Qaida training videotapes and manuals captured in Afghanistan specifically show the planning of attacks on Americans in drive-by shootings, experts who have analyzed those materials are cautious about concluding the murder spree outside of Washington yesterday is connected in any way to terrorism.
The videotapes and training manuals, which show Osama lin Laden's terrorists have prepared to kill Americans with small-arms fire from trucks and vans, were first revealed in a WorldNetDaily report last month.
But John Holschen of Insights Training Center, who produced a report on the tape for military and law enforcement officials, said the rash of shootings in a small area of suburban Washington in a short period of time is unusual but not altogether unique.
"It's not inconceivable that this will turn out to be a terrorist attack," he said. However, he cautioned against jumping to any conclusions without more information.
The training video captured in Afghanistan shows al-Qaida operatives practicing the following kinds of assaults:
Skip Gouchenour, a licensed detective in Pennsylvania who has analyzed the videotape and other training materials and made a presentation on them for the Pennsylvania Detectives Association, agreed that the Maryland shooting and murder spree is very unusual.
"I'm not dismissing the possibility of a terrorist connection," he said. "It's strange, indeed."
Gouchenour specializes in investigating murder cases for district attorneys, defense attorneys, police agencies and private citizens. He says he has run across similar murder sprees in his career, but finds some of the details of this case unusual.
Police across the Washington area are searching for what they describe as "a skilled shooter" who killed five people in a random death spree beginning Wednesday night and continuing yesterday morning in Montgomery County, Md.
The shootings took place at two shopping centers, two gas stations and on the lawn outside an auto dealership along Rockville Pike. The victims were ordinary people doing ordinary things on a seemingly ordinary day.
As a result of the attacks, children were kept indoors at schools in the county.
"We do have someone that so far has been very accurate in what they are attempting to do, and so we probably have a skilled shooter," said Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose yesterday. Police said they are looking for a small, slightly damaged white truck that may have black lettering on the side. Witnesses to the shootings said they saw a truck matching that description leaving some of the crime scenes.
Montgomery County police spokesman Derek Baliles said police suspect the shooter was armed with a rifle.
About 40 minutes before the first killing, a shot was fired through a window of a Michael's craft store in the 3800 block of Aspen Hill Road. No one was hurt, but Montgomery County police said they believe the incident may have been related to what followed.
The first fatal shooting occurred Wednesday night at 6 o'clock, when James Martin, 55, of Silver Spring was killed in the parking lot of a Shoppers Food Warehouse at Randolph Road and Georgia Avenue in Wheaton. By yesterday morning, the stores in the area were open for business as usual. A security tape from a camera that monitors the lot had been turned over to police.
Then about 7:40 a.m., James Buchanan was pushing a lawn mower over a narrow strip of grass in front of the Fitzgerald Auto Mall on Rockville Pike when he was shot.
The next victim was Premkumar A. Walekar, a part-time cab driver. It was about 8:10 a.m., at a Mobil gas station on Aspen Hill Road at Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill, when the killer struck and Walekar died pumping gas.
About 8:30 a.m., Sarah Ramos, 34, was sitting on a bench at the shopping center near the Leisure World retirement community off Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring when the killer next took aim and fired.
It was just before 10 a.m. at a Shell gas station in Kensington and Lori Lewis-Rivera, 25, was vacuuming her minivan. The station, at the corner of Knowles and Connecticut avenues in the heart of Kensington, is visible from all directions. But again the killer struck as if coming from nowhere.
Throughout the day the manhunt intensified, but as night fell there had been no arrests. Though authorities have downplayed the possibility of terrorism, the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Secret Service have all been involved in the investigation.
Buck fever has nothing on a person that's committed himself in this way.
The interviewer asked, "What if I know my neighbor down the block has a 30.06, do I still call in?"
The lady said that you should still call because "You don't what other assault rifles he might own."
WBAL Radio News
Police Narrow In On Shooter And Weapon
October 4, 2002
Montgomery County police say they are "90 percent" certain that a high-powered hunting or assault-type weapon was used to shoot five people killed over a 16-hour period.
Whether one or many weapons were used, however, was still undetermined, police said.
Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said Friday that officers, meanwhile, were chasing down about 150 credible leads as they look for a "skilled shooter" suspected in the rampage that began Wednesday night. Four of the victims were killed in little more than two hours Thursday morning, police said.
Moose said the shootings appeared to be linked.
"We feel fairly comfortable that it is connected and being done by a single entity, whether that is one or two people," Moose said on NBC's Today Show.
None of the victims appeared to have been robbed, and police said race did not appear to be a motive. The victims were Hispanic, white and a cab driver from India.
"There's still no information to lead us to think our victims are associated," Moose said. "They don't appear to be anyone's enemies, just random targets."
Moose said police were responding to a flood of calls by frightened residents about loud noises resembling gunshots, but that no shots had been fired Friday morning.
"We're all human, we're all afraid," Moose said at a press conference. "I'm on edge, people in the community are on edge... We're responding, we're following up."
Officials are "90 percent sure" a high powered .223 round is being used, said Capt. Nancy Demme, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman.
Demme said detectives were still waiting for results from autopsies.
Police released types of weapons they believe could have been used, mostly semiautomatic rifles. Moose said handguns are also made to fire that caliber. He asked people to report any missing weapons.
Officers collected security camera videos from businesses near the shooting scenes, including two grocery stores. They also set up a tip hotline and offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the suspects.
When asked about a video surveillance tape from the parking lot where the Wednesday night shooting occurred, Moose said it was being reviewed, but wouldn't discuss specifics.
Montgomery County schools are open, but outside activities were expected to be canceled again Friday, Demme said.
Moose said officers would be out in force, patrolling the area.
A single shot apparently was fired at each location, but it is unclear whether the shots were fired from a vehicle or at what range, police said.
"We do have someone that so far has been very accurate in what they are attempting to do, and so we probably have a skilled shooter," said Moose.
Police said they did not have any eyewitnesses to the shootings, but one person reported seeing a white van with two occupants speed from the scene of one shooting.
On Friday morning, police continued to search for white trucks and vans in the area. No stolen vehicles were reported, police said.
"We don't have a license plate," Moose said. "We feel like the one we're looking for is still out there."
Gov. Parris Glendening committed 140 state troopers, a helicopter and whatever additional aid is needed, a spokesman said.
The FBI, Secret Service, and ATF also were involved, and officers were stopping all white cargo vans in their search for the killers, police said.
The killings began early Wednesday evening. Around 6 p.m., James D. Martin, 55, of Silver Spring, a program analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was shot in the parking lot of a Wheaton grocery store.
Around 7:45 a.m. Thursday, James L. "Sonny" Buchanan, 39, Arlington, Va., was killed while cutting grass at a car dealership in the White Flint area. He stumbled toward the building before collapsing as dozens of employees ran toward him.
"I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, 'Help is on the way,"' service director Al Briggs told The Washington Post. "But he was already gone."
Prenkumar Walekar, 54, of Olney, was shot about 8:15 a.m., while pumping gas into his cab at a Mobil station in the Aspen Hill area.
About a half-hour later, Sarah Ramos, 34, of Silver Spring, died at a post office next to the Leisure World retirement community in Silver Spring.
Dolores Wallgren said she saw Ramos slumped over on a bench, bleeding from the head, when she arrived to go to a beauty shop nearby.
"She was sitting on the bench, just sitting there," Wallgren said.
In the fifth shooting, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, of Silver Spring, was shot and killed about 10 a.m. at a Shell gas station in Kensington. Mechanics said they heard the shot but didn't see who shot Lewis-Rivera, who was vacuuming her van.
Late Thursday, someone placed two small lit candles and a bouquet of carnations on the concrete base below the vacuuming machine.
The killings brought the number of homicides in Montgomery County to 25 this year, the most since 1997.
The last time as many people were killed in one day in the county was in July 1995, when a handyman's assistant killed podiatrist David Marc Goff, his three daughters and a contractor at Goff's home in Potomac. Bruman S. Alvarez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six consecutive life terms.
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