Another DC-area sniper-style shooting

Wife (FReeper nina0113) | October 4, 2002 | Steve0113

[Steve0113]

Another broad-daylight shooting just occurred, this time in Fredericksburg, VA, just off I-95. It's not even on the news yet.

About an hour's drive south of where the Montgomery County shootings happened, a woman was shot in the parking lot of a Michaels fabric store. My wife was in the store at the time. The victim had left the store and carried her purchases to her minivan. She unlocked the minivan and was loading her stuff into it when she was shot. No sign of the shooter.

No one else was injured.

The woman was taken away in an ambulance, condition unknown. Her license plate (which I'm not going to post) indicated that she had several children.

[El Gato]

It was a McNamara thing

Actually it was a JFK thing, he loved the little Poodle Shooter! (Jeff Cooper's term, not mine)

[kristinn]

It seems to me this is now a 'you can't catch me' game.

Wednesday night was a trial run--a see-how-it-feels exercise. Thursday morning was the main event. The one shooting Thursday night and this afternoon's were done just to mess with the cops.

I expect another cluster this weekend or early next week in a different locale, perhaps in rural Maryland.

I hope they're caught (and killed) before the next shooting.

[Denver Ditdat]

I would guess a radical muslim is running around trying to disrupt things

Times sure do change, don't they? Had this happened a year and a half ago, there would be threads rife with Prozac or Ritalin speculation.

[FreeTheHostages]

When we meet on Wednesday I'll tell you a great and wonderful story about Lt. Dave Jackson, the guy assigned to NW shooting. It's about his industry in helping put away a serial killer (drug enforcer for the P Street crew, "Kennyman"). A guy so dangerous that a retired police detective & decorated Vietnam vet tried to refuse service and risked contempt rather than testify for the government on the case, lest Kennyman kill him next. Lt. Jackson's work on this case was a brilliant, quick-thinking and brave bit of policework. I don't have enough good things to say about this guy. Why he still tolerates working for the DC police is the only question. I suspect he really cares and knows he can make a difference. God bless such people.

[FreeTheHostages]

"It seems to me this is now a 'you can't catch me' game."

Yup.

[aristeides]

The fact that the shooting spree started off Wednesday night across the street from a police station supports your idea that this is a "you can't catch me" game.

[Travis McGee]

That textbook is obsolete, this is terrorism pure and simple. By who for what is still TBD.

[tgslTakoma]

It's a pretty open area, with a few strip shopping areas, a KFC/Taco Hell with a parking lot... I don't know the exact location of the shooting, I think I heard that the elderly man was at a bus stop. If it was northbound GA Ave, there is a stop right at Eastern Ave, and backs up to Jessup Blair Park. Southbound GA Ave stop is maybe only 25 yards further away from the park.

My son's old school buddies live in Aspen Hill, and they're a bit concerned for their safety, too. I'm beginning to understand how the Israelis feel.

[Denver Ditdat]

The profilers say the fugitives are probably white men, in their mid-to-late 20s or early 30s

So, profiling is ok if you suspect the perp(s) are white? Hmmmm.

[Travis McGee]

The old round was 55 grains at 3250fps, the new one is 62 at 2950 I think, with a penetrator core.

I think this guy is using HPs though, there are dozens of factory choices.

[Denver Ditdat]

I nominate PETA, long as we're engaging in paranoia.

I'll see your PETA, and raise you an ALF and Earth First!

[Travis McGee]

If the shooter even knows what's at Quantico. He may just be cruising down 95.

[kristinn]

If they really didn't want to get caught, they'd have done it all in D.C. The odds of getting away with murder here are better than 50/50 :-(

[Atchafalaya]

Yes, albeit specialized handguns. You can shoot a a 45-70 and better in some, but you pay the piper on the recoil side.

[Cap'n Crunch]

I just heard about the shooting in Fredericksburg, off 95. We stayed at a hotel right off of 95, I wonder exactly where it happened.

[FreeTheHostages]

point taken

[El Gato]

The article also says that it was NOT a high powered weapon.

Actually it says "appears" not to be a high powered rifle. But, since they haven't recovered the bullet yet, or hadn't when the article was written, there' a lot of speculation and very little usefull evidence behind that statement. It might have been a bad shot, maybe a sudden gust of wind or something, that just grazed her side, with the entrance and exit wounds not all that far apart, leaving little distance for the bullet to yaw or deform, in fact the natural yaw, could have taken the bullet away from her spine and towards the outside, producing a through and through wound, with fairly small exit and entrance size.

[FreeTheHostages]

good point

[FreeTheHostages]

[null and void]

Hmm. I guess I know what my minister would say.

I don't know what your minister would say, but it is impossible to murder in self defense...