Sixth death linked to sniper - Police want to talk to N.C. ex-resident [Robert Gene Baker - photo]

newsobserver.com ^ | October 5, 2002

[HAL9000]

Baker, shown in a 1993 photo, is wanted for questioning.

SILVER SPRING, Md. -- Police linked the shooting of a 72-year-old man in Washington to the sniper killings of five Maryland residents and said that the same high-powered rifle was used to kill at least four of the victims.

Authorities were searching for two men, including one with North Carolina ties, for questioning, and were investigating whether a seventh shooting outside a Virginia store was part of the same crime spree.

Late Friday, federal authorities in Charlotte issued a bulletin for a 33-year-old former Raleigh man in connection with the shootings. Robert Gene Baker III was believed to be heading south from Washington and may have associates in Virginia and North Carolina, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said.

Baker previously lived in an apartment at 9135 Stonehenge Drive in North Raleigh. It was not known when Baker last lived in Raleigh.

Baker's family members reported him missing Monday, according to the ATF report.

The bulletin described Baker as a drug user affiliated with various militia and white supremacist groups. He is 5-feet-9 and 165 pounds, with brown eyes, brown hair and tattoos on both arms and his back.

Police are looking for a white 2000 GMC van with dark lettering. The vehicle has a Maryland registration.

The ATF says it believes Baker is armed with a handgun and high-powered rifle and should be considered extremely dangerous.

Baker was arrested in 1993 in Raleigh on a fugitive warrant and also was charged with not wearing a seat belt and driving without a license, according to Wake County court records.

In Washington, police reported that the same weapon was used in Friday's slaying as in three of the five shootings in Maryland, said Special Agent Michael Bouchard of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Forensic testing was still under way in the two other Maryland shootings.

"We are on track to get him," said Charles Moose, the Montgomery County police chief, and a 1975 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. But few witnesses saw the killings, and no shell casings were found at the crime scenes.

In the latest case linked to the sniper fire, a 72-year-old man walking near the Montgomery County line on a main northern Washington street was shot once in the chest Thursday night. He fell dead, just a short drive from the Montgomery County locations where the first five victims were killed.

The shooting Friday, still under investigation for links to the sniper cases, was in Fredericksburg, Va., 50 miles to the south.

At the Spottsylvania Shopping Center, a woman was shot in the back and critically wounded Friday afternoon as she loaded packages into her car outside a Michaels arts and crafts store. The police said a gray car was seen speeding off afterward.

The ATF has received a bullet casing from that shooting, and will test it, Moose said.

The police, saying they were in the early stages of the investigation, said they saw no immediate connection except the seemingly random nature of the shootings. But they expressed interest in the coincidence that the very first Montgomery County incident on Wednesday night was a shot fired through the window of another Michaels store in Wheaton, Md. That shot barely missed a store clerk, the police said, while the rifleman's next five shots resulted in five fatalities. Those victims died in separate attacks Wednesday and Thursday as they went about routine outdoor activities, from mowing the grass to cleaning out a car.

Moose, the Montgomery County police chief, confirmed Friday morning that ballistic evidence showed that the victims most likely were shot by a sniper using high-intensity .223-caliber bullets of the sort used by rifle hunters and soldiers.

"They don't appear to be anyone's enemies, just random targets," said Moose, noting the victims were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Detectives' confirmation of the stalker's marksmanship plus the possibility that the gunman might have widened his field and struck again intensified the anxiety spreading through Washington and surrounding suburbs in Maryland and Virginia.

"People were just out doing ordinary things, and people just decide to drive by and blow them away," said Connie Gray, 69, a Montgomery County resident shopping near where a woman was shot through the head on Thursday as she sat on a bench outside a post office. "That saddens me, and it angers me."

Detectives indicated that they had a continuing suspicion that the method used by the rifleman was to take aim from a distance while hidden inside such a truck, beyond sight of immediate witnesses, and to speed away with the spent cartridge evidence.

While stressing this as the police's best theoretical lead, Moose rejected speculation that more than one gunman might be involved. He also said the white-truck scenario was one of many that could emerge as detectives seek fresh evidence.

The deadliness of the gunman's intent was clear as a federal firearms expert explained that the .223 caliber bullet, while relatively small looking, was designed for high-velocity firing from an outsized cartridge packed with extra gunpowder.

The very idea that such high-intensity open-field weaponry was being brought to bear covertly on suburbanites chilled residents trying to go about their business.

"You're afraid standing here that somebody might come along and shoot you -- you know it's possible," said Loretta Betesch, 42, an insurance saleswoman, pausing in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, where the first victim was gunned down on Wednesday. "It could happen anywhere. It's very unnerving."

[OReilly]

He was the choice of Portland Mayor Vera Katz. That's right, the same Mayor Katz who refused to cooperate with Ashcroft after 9/11 and in whose office Patrice Lumumba Ford (arrested yesterday as a member of the Portland al Qaeda cell) interned.

SO we have another PC idiot, Duncan, hiring another PC but dim bulb like Moose. Just listen to the verbal score difference between some of the blond Police Officers at the press conferences and Moose who can't talk and think, or listen and think, at the same time.

[OReilly]

Anyone who starts out most of his answers with "Again", turns me off right away. Is there a Black Police Chiefs school that Ramsey and Moose both went to? You just know immediately that you are going to get BS instead of an answer.

[spetznaz]

I agree with you totally.

When i said i pity them i meant their logic and simple minds! Obviously they are inherently dangerous (mixing stupidity, ignorance and hate leads to a potent and volatile mix) and in my opinion they do not represent 'white supremacy' but instead the absolute lowest dregs of society. Hence although i pity their simple minds i believe if evolution was real they should be made extinct.

I also read your nice profile and i noticed you have been to a lot of nations. I also noticed you mentioned Tanzania as one of them, and that obviouly brought up Kenya (since it is Tanzania's neighbor). Have you ever been to Kenya? If yes what part or parts?

If you have please tell me, and i will tell you why i ask.

[spetznaz]

Ah ...i knew there was something i left out. Thanks for clarifying that Muawiyah. You are indeed correct .....that was the crux of the KKK and when the Klansmen saw what their leader had done they started to leave in droves. Hence it could be said it was the Grand Dragon of the Klan who destroyed the Klan by raping and brutally biting that girl on her breasts (she was white coincidentally SkyWalk meaning your premise that white supremacists do not do bad stuff to white people does not hold). That act finally made many of the kooks stop wearing bed sheets and leave the Klan due to its sheer brutality.

The actions of the FBI under Hoover could thus be said to have been at best a coup de grac in that it just ensured the Klan was truly finished as a real power. Thus although Hoover moped up the remains it was the Grand Dragon of the Klan in Indiana himself who killed the kook movement.

As for Hoover i really wonder a lot about him! After all if he used to cross dress in womens clothes then it is possible wearing white sheets with silly pointy hats was not a far stretch! I think if a guy will wear dresses and put on makeup (and he was the FBI head in an era when cross-dressing was not so carte blanche) then it is also possible he was in favor of wearing lil' Billy's bed sheets. And although i have never seen any evidence of Hoover being a Klan member i would not at all be surprised if he was. However he did implement some strategies that hurt the Klan ...although he might have done that just to save his own skin since he was a great political survivor and served under several administrations by chameleon tactics that even included blackmail.

[virgil]

Worldnetdaily.com is reporting that there are 2 suspects wanted for questioning and are Hispanic looking by eyewitness reports.

[Travis McGee]

The first, I am not a fast writer!

[motexva]

What is Leisureworld? Isn't it a golf course? I used to live in Manassas and work in Fairfax but I didn't get up to Silver Springs much. I do remember hearing or seeing ads for a Leisureworld golf course though. Someone else said it's a retirement community . . . is it actually one of those planned, franchised retirement communities, like Del Webb out here in the southwest?

[motexva]

Actually I thought the Souther Poverty Law Center essentially sued the main Ku Klux Klan organization out of existence in the late 80s after linking them to a killing, perhaps the one you mentioned. The relatives of the victims in that case actually ended up owning the property where the Klan headquarters stood. Now there are just decentralized state organizations, which I have always believed were merely a front for organized crime activities like drug dealing and car theft.

[wardaddy]

I've only been to Narobi briefly.

My only issue with this subject and not you in particular is that proclaiming white supremacists are bad is too easy and at times folks indulge in that in a self congragulatory fashion. Bashing coneheads is easy....sort of like bashing child molestors. Our real enemies are much more subtle and determined and smarter and have many unwitting accomplices.


Maybe it's a generational thing.....you (now I'm being specific to you) used the word "hate" in your denunciation. I have an issue with that. My age group (45 next month) never really got sensitized to that word like most folks under 30 or so are now. I think it's perfectly alright to hate in the proper context. We hated the Japs and Krauts with good reason 50 years ago. I hate the Islamists much the same now. Because I hate doesn't make me the pejorative.

I see this frequently on this forum. When folks sling the hater or racist or bigot or intolerant etc.....it just makes me uneasy....like folks are saying what they expect to say for approval or because it's become such an easy way to slime anyone's opinion and neuter them basically.

Maybe it's just me. I'm not flaming you. You appear earnest and enthusiastic and hence I think you are likely younger than I.

I'm a gut person. I'm more concerned by folk's actions than their feelings and hate is an emotion.

LOL....Did I make "any" sense?

Regards.

[aristeides]

Leisureworld is the biggest retirement community in these parts. I've only driven past, and haven't noticed a golf course there. But it's far enough out of D.C. that it would be easy for it to have one.

[HAL9000]

UPDATE - Robert Gene Baker III is now in police custody in Fairfax, Va., on an outstanding auto theft warrant from Florida.

[muawiyah]

By the time Morris Dees came on the scene, the greater part of the Ku Klux Klan had been out of business for several decades. In fact, almost no one even knew anyone who had ever belonged to the Klan.

They used to have millions of members. They controlled by the Democratic and the Republican parties in Indiana among other things.

[browardchad]

Thanks for the info.

[fone]

Is it published? I'd like to read it!

[185JHP]

Good thing we don't have General Elders in public office to opine on "safer gunpowder."

[Travis McGee]

Almost. I'll post a synopsis and sample chapter, stay tuned.

[Travis McGee]

The Raid: New Fiction From The War On Domestic Terrorism

[Travis McGee]

For any freepers who don't know, I am writing a novel (which is 99% finished) about the federal government's assault on the 2nd amendment which follows a scenario which could be put into action at almost any time in this era of the "Patriot Act". I think my novel will be more accessible than John Ross' fine novel "Unintended Consequences", (certainly it will be shorter, at under 400 pages, and it will not be gratuitously, needlessly sexual).

The novel starts in Washington FedEx stadium when bullets begin to fly into an upper deck, which causes a panic stampede for the exits. The bullets continue to hit spectators, all this is on television of course since it is an NFL game, this adds to the panic. The crush of people high in the stadium fleeing down to the ramps causes the spectators near the upper deck rails to be pushed right over the edge to drop to the lower decks, all filmed on television by a dozen cameras. More people die in jams in the narrow ramps and exits; the total death count is over 1000. Dozens of U.S. Senators and Congressmen are eye witnesses. That is how the novel opens.

The shooter is found and killed 1200 yards outside of the stadium by a SWAT sniper in a police helicopter, a semi automatic so-called "assault rifle" at his side. He turns out to be an unemployed Desert Storm vet with a history of mental and physical problems attributed to "Gulf War Syndrome". This scrawny loser is soon connected to a group of hunters and shooters in southeastern Virginia ("Tidewater"). Jihad literature is found near his body in Arabic taking credit for the massacre in the name of an Islamic terrorist group. The "obvious" intent of the shooter was to blame Arab American Muslims for the massacre, but "luckily he was killed and the evil plan revealed". That is what the media and the sheeple believe. They are led to believe the shooting was actually planned and carried out by white yahoo rednecks from Virginia, trying to stir up hatred and armed reaction against Muslims in America. The motive is "obvious", all the evidence points to that conclusion. In fact, the shooter is a patsy dredged out of a VA hospital by the actual conspirators.

The massacre is predictably blamed on the easy access to high capacity "assault rifles", even by lunatics fresh out of the loony bin. On Monday following the stadium massacre both houses of Congress pass an emergency bill in record time outlawing the private possession of all centerfire semi-auto rifles, with a one-week turn in period and no buy-back. The few pro 2nd Amendment congressmen willing to speak are shouted into silence, the bill is passed and signed by the president, public opinion polls show overwhelming support for it.

The next Friday night there is a "gun store kristallnacht" in SE Virginia as "mobs of outraged citizens" in the dead patsy's home town torch them with gasoline bombs. The mobs are actually gang bangers on parole recruited by the actual organizers of the stadium massacre, who are two deranged and power mad BATF officials. They hope by creating a massacre blamed on easy access to high capacity "assault rifles" to become the leaders of a new anti-gun federal law enforcement division with sweeping powers and unlimited funding.

A decorated Viet Nam green beret is killed with a bomb secretly placed in his car, then it is leaked to the media that he was on his way to blow up a federal building when "his bomb went off prematurely". Other "false flag" black operations of this sort lead to a public climate of fear and hysteria over "right wing militia terrorism". The aim of the plotters is to have the president secretly authorize the creation of a special covert federal unit which will be permitted to act outside the constitution to pro-actively terminate "suspected terrorists" using Phoenix Program death squad tactics on American soil during "the emergency". Since federal SWAT teams are already made up to a great extent by former Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and others used to fighting terrorism overseas by "any means necessary", it is no problem putting together a secret domestic anti-terrorism unit which will combat our own "right wing terrorists" by the same extra-legal methods.

That is just the beginning, but as you can imagine, the plot does not exactly go according to plan. A new division of the BATF is secretly named the "lead agency" in the repression of "gun nuts and militia fanatics", when actually it was a rogue BATF senior official who orchestrated the stadium massacre in order to increase his power and his budget in the predictable reaction to the "right wing militia massacre and bombings". In fact, this official had conveniently already written contingency plans for this type of new counter terrorism unit, and is (as he planned) named the first chief of the new covert unit.

Anyway, the situation evolves into a sub rosa "dirty war" of secret arrests, covert "interrogation centers", "disappearances", assassinations and counter assassinations, with the JBTs using the latest technology, and the other side using scoped deer rifles one shot at a time against anti Bill of Rights politicians. Running throughout the book is the race to solve the mystery of the stadium shooter: was he truly, as reported, a deranged former Marine, or just a hapless patsy? Did he even fire a shot? If he is a patsy, who put him there with the rifle and why?

Needless to say, ABCNNBCBS has one opinion (the anti gun govt. line) while the internet forums are a hotbed of opposing theories. Coservative websites plays a major role in revealing the details of the plot, the truth and the outcome is left up in the air until the very end, as some of the targeted "right wing gun nuts" take the dirty war back to the secret government death squad unit. The full truth about the stadium massacre and aftermath is readied for airing on one new major news network, while the secret government death squad races to stop the story from airing by all the means at its disposal, including bombings and assassinations.

The background of my plot is that if the JBTs (Jack Booted Thugs, federal SWAT teams) cannot find actual "right wing militia terrorists", it may prove very tempting to some in the "anti terrorism industry" to create them. It would really be simple to do: it would only take a few arranged massacres blamed on "right wing gun nuts" to create the proper atmosphere of hysteria. The FBI's budget grew from 2 to 4 billion dollars per year during the 1990s in the "war on terrorism", and this was before 9-11. You can only imagine the kind of money being directed against terrorism now, and the temptation that kind of money might provide to the unscrupulous who will direct and control that cash flow, and the federal law enforcement promotions which will be handed out as new departments are created and manpower rolls swell with new recruits.

But almost all of the new funding is going to the FBI in its battle against foreign born islamic terrorists. The BATF is again being left on the sidelines.... until in my novel an evil high ranking BATF official figures out a way to jump start a "war on right wing domestic terrorism" with his bogus stadium massacre, a massacre blamed on too easy access to "assault rifles". This puts the BATF center stage, and directs the money flow to this rogue BATF official, as he had planned.

[fone]

Man that sounds excellent!!!

Are you able to get this published, or will this just be on the internet???

[Cvengr]

Sounds great,....what about the part of the guy using "high intensity bullets",.....now that's gotta be intense,...you're probably more sensitive and attentive to jingoisms used in popular press articles,...a list of such phrases would probably offer plenty of fodder for social commentary.