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.
No way Al-Qaeda would shoot a cab driver...
If Mr. Walekar was wearing a Hindu turban, he'd be fair game for a Møøse Limb shooter...
This may be profiling, but was the cabbie Indian? And who is India at war with???
Born in Bombay.
The Mt Pleasant/Columbia Heights shotgun murderer just drove around and shot people with a shotgun. There is a precedent in that area. The place sucks.
With a 10X scope? Someone who knew the difference between Muslim and Sikh turbans could figure it out.
Possibly, but I will disagree. squeezing off a round with a big bore rifle in broad daylight will have a tendency to turn many heads. Everyone on the streets has a cell phone, even the people sitting on bus benches nowadays have one.
The entire city was aware and looking after the second or third shooting and the choppers were everywhere. I still find it hard to believe that these perps didn't get detected yesterday.
I would have bet the rent that they would have cornered these guys with an ensuing gun battle yesterday.
When that didn't happen, I was a little stunned. A big bore rifle will make a hell of a noise in a city or suburb. Seems to me this should have turned a hell of a lot of heads with cell phones to report description of vehicle, direction of travel etc, and with choppers already in the area, I don't see how these guys were not caught....Just my take....
This leads me to believe that this could possibly be something more than your garden varity nut job......
Yeah, but that is bothersome and takes time--so why bother to target a cab?
I think it's a random shooter. I lived there for 3 years and I felt like driving around and shooting random people. The place sucks.
I'm thinking the same thing.
I'm leaning towards a clinically sane person who is a very good shot. If he's sane, then he has what seems to be a reasonable and sensible motive to him.
He might be a Moose Limb terrorist.
One round discharged, and one guy down on the ground. The downed individual is a pretty severe distractor. And there will be an inevitable amount of confusion and arm-waving immediately afterwards. Ask combat vets about how easy it is to spot a lone shooter.
When that didn't happen, I was a little stunned. A big bore rifle will make a hell of a noise in a city or suburb.
Many folks will assume the shooter was, for example, EAST of the target when he was actually to the WEST, because they will conflate the crack of the bullet going past them with the sound of the discharge. That will lead to all kinds of bum scoop getting to the cops.
Seems to me this should have turned a hell of a lot of heads with cell phones to report description of vehicle, direction of travel etc, and with choppers already in the area, I don't see how these guys were not caught....Just my take....
Again, confusion will prevail in the immediate aftermath, and persons unfamiliar with firearms will often be more of a hindrance than a help to catching the shooter.
This leads me to believe that this could possibly be something more than your garden varity nut job......
The fact that this guy scored a possible (5 10-Ring hits out of 5 shots fired) told me that. The fact that he took ONE shot each time and then bugged out tells me he's very disciplined--the USMC teaches its scout-snipers to NEVER take more than 3 shots from any one position, and that if they can displace after one shot, that is usually the wisest course of action.
/1/ It is easy to build a homemade sound suppressor which will mask the muzzle blast of a rifle. We are talking one hour in the garage.
/2/ A vehicle can be used as a giant sound suppressor, such as a van or truck.
/3/ Structures make the muzzle blast and sonic crack echo all over the place, the overall combined reverberating sound just appears "everywhere", or even originating from the wrong place (a closer building which echoed the the sound to you).
/4/ The sound of the supersonic rifle slug ("sonic crack") is totally independent of muzzle blast, and may be as loud as a .22 short or thereabouts. This may sound louder than the suppressed muzzle blast several hundred yards away, leading to more location confusion.
/5/ Sonic crack does NOT point to the shooter, the ear witness is hearing the tiny "sonic boom" of the passing bullet, the sonic crack's sound wave travels at an angle off of the slug.
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They will need to find spent shell casings to locate the shooters' positions. If he was using a bolt or single shot weapon (even a scoped TC Contender pistol) they will not even find a shell to ID the type of weapon.
If the sniper used high velocity hollowpoints it's doubtful they will get a slug intact enough to run meaningful ballistics tests: the slug will be fragmented. They may not even be positive of the caliber used.
A locked-breech firearm like the Contender, with a quality barrel can easily do under MOA with decent .223 ammo. Even with a 14" barrel. Of course, I'm talking with a steady rest, not off-hand. I've hit small silhouettes at 300 yds with my XP-100 in .221 Fireball, supported of course.
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