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.
As shooters, we normally only hear the loud BOOM 20 inches in front of us, this masks all the other sounds. I have experience with suppressed weapons, the sound the slug makes hitting a brick wall 100 yards away from you is LOUD when you subtract most of your muzzle blast. We never even hear this, ezcept maybe a "ding" off a steel target, or a "thwack" into soft dirt.
Hit a car or wall with a bullet, it's LOUD in it's own right.
These guys are motivated to go nonstop. They are after a goal, and have an agenda to follow. Each shot except the last on thurs took driving time + some ~25 mins of observing. The last shot on Thurs took an extra 30 mins. They deliberately went N, stopped, and backtracked twords DC. I think that extra 30 mins was for collecting data at and around their previous 3 shootings
Oh I understand that perfectly, the only problem is that some of these witnesses were across the street etc from the victims being shot. Not all the witnesses are going to be standing right next to the victim...
As a matter of fact, the majority of people in the area, I am confident were not standing on top of the victim. Just a guess......
You get an appreciation for how loud the crack is when you're pulling targets on the rifle range.
One lad brought his .300 Winchester Magnum, and we thought someone was shooting HE rounds at us!
I'm willing to bet most of the eyewitnesses were within 40 feet (that's a healthy distance).
You must not have been watching the TeeVee coverage ... they have it all figured out. It is "probably a hunter" or "skilled marksman" driving a "SUV" that "reads Guns and Ammo magazines" and owns "one or more rifles" of any description.
Extrapolating from what I have heard on TeeVee and have seen in the 2 (pathetic) press conferences -- it is a white male, conservative, Republican, SUV driver that owns guns of any type. You know the sort ... eeeeevil. You are encouraged to report anyone owning not just a .223, but any rifle, "because you never know what else they may have" ...
In my novel, both sides use misdirection and false clues. A sniper who shoots a senator with a 100 year old Nagant and leaves it in place drops cigarette butts and soda cans left by DC police on a break at the lair in the bushes. The "gestapo" leave weapons siezed from "militia" groups at the scenes of shooting s that they do.
Don't leave brass around, your brass could be dropped at the scene of a crime, then you got a lot of 'splainin to do.
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