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Posted on 10/05/2002 4:18:07 PM PDT by flamefront
Police across three US states were searching yesterday for a 33-year-old whitesupremacist from North Carolina who they believe may be linked to the shocking series of random killings that have terrorised the Washington area over the past few days.
According to a bulletin from the North Carolina office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a man named Robert Gene Baker III was believed to be around the American capital armed with a handgun and a high-powered rifle, and should be considered extremely dangerous. The ATF said he was driving a white GMC truck with Maryland registration plates and heading south towards North Carolina.
That description dovetailed almost exactly with clues picked up by local police forces in Montgomery County, Maryland – where five of the seven shootings took place – and in the District of Columbia.
One of the very few eyewitnesses to emerge so far said he saw two men in a white truck speeding away from one of the crime scenes, and Charles Moose, the police chief in Montgomery County, has said he is working on the assumption that there is a driver as well as a marksman. Ballistics evidence, meanwhile, has shown that the perpetrators used high-intensity bullets of the sort used by hunters and soldiers – and which may be compatible with the weapon ascribed to Baker by the ATF.
Baker was described as a drug user affiliated with various militia and white supremacist groups. The agency said he was 5 ft 9in, had brown eyes and brown hair and sported tattoos on his back and both arms.
Police have mounted an intensive manhunt across the eastern seaboard but without much hard evidence to go on – even the white truck is not much of a clue, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them on American roads.
Six people have been killed and one other badly injured since Wednesday night, in what police officials have described as almost ghost-like sniper attacks.
The perpetrators appear to have chosen their targets without discrimination, picking on people as they went about their daily business. In each case, they fired from a discreet distance where they could not immediately be spotted, then vanished before anyone could pick up on their trail.
The latest attack, on Friday afternoon, took place outside a crafts store in Fredericksburg, Virginia, around 50 miles south of Washington – a location consistent with the ATF tip that Baker was heading south through Virginia to North Carolina. The victim of the Fredericksburg attack was loading her car with her purchases when she was shot in the back. Her condition was not immediately made known.
The investigation is in its very early stages and police have ruled nothing out. Baker has not been formally named as a suspect, and the authorities have no idea who the second man indicated by Chief Moose might be. Ballistics tests have linked only four of the seven shootings. The bullets from the Fredericksburg attack were still being analysed yesterday, while in the two other cases the ammunition had degraded too far to be identifiable.
Everyone is working on the assumption, however, that all seven attacks are the work of the same criminal or criminals. Chief Moose said it would be "very strange" if the unidentified bullets did not match. Speaking to reporters, he said the investigation was "one of the most complex cases I've been involved with".
"It could be military, it could be a hunter, it could be someone... who has an interest in weapons," he said, and appealed directly to the perpetrators: "Whoever is involved in this madness, rethink what you're doing. Turn yourself in. Surrender to law enforcement." Gunman kills Arab youth in France
Police in northern France were yesterday hunting a gunman who shot dead a 17-year-old of North African origin and wounded three others in two apparently racist attacks in Dunkirk.
The man, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, fired one rifle shot from behind the wheel of a Nissan 4x4 through a cafe window on Friday night. He then shot at customers who ran out in panic, police said yesterday. Two of the wounded were of North African origin.
An hour later, he fired at a group of teenagers at another cafe, killing Mohamed Maghara, a youth of Moroccan descent. Daniel Ferey, deputy prefect in Dunkirk, called the shootings "premeditated and racist". About 200 police were searching for the gunman, believed to be in his 40s.
"We have no clues about him and he was not identified," Mr Ferey said. "The licence plates were covered. He was wearing a hunting jacket or a military outfit."
About half the residents of Grande-Synthe, the Dunkirk suburb where the youth was killed, are of North African Arab origin. Yesterday 300 people marched through the area in protest at the attacks.
Are the FIB trying to bring back Project Megiddo?
I think they are just trying to catch the guys with the clues they've got... What do you think?...
You may be right on all counts! - Now what part of that bothers you?
What a lot of 'bull crap.'
"(H)unters and soldiers" do NOT use the same "sort" of ammunition - soldiers use full metal jacket (FMJ) ammunition, and hunters generally use soft point or hollow point (SP or HP) ammo. Hunting ammo and Geneva-approved military ammo are NOT the same thing.
Get ready for the 'Big Ream' from the D*mocrat-anti-gun lobby...
Ask the moron who used the term...
;>)
I've seen various reports from LE that the truck is a white van, a cargo truck, and a box truck with black lettering. Now, that's a help!
What's the big secret? Does the vehicle have a "Support a Palestinian State" bumper sticker on it?
(Yes, I saw a passenger car with this exact bumper sticker on it in the Chicago suburbs two weeks ago!)
Leni
Well if the right wing is going to be as unhelpful as some of you sound, it will be our fault if the dems win on that count.
Look people, there is a guy out there killing random people walking out of stores and putting gas in their cars, and it is on the national news. We can't defend ourselves against that, and you are damn right it scares people. It should.
This is exactly the kind of crime that will take our guns away, because it isn't just the bad risk-taking people getting killed this time, it is anyone. If our 2A spokespeople (and we are in public now, so we count) are smart we would be out giving as much helpful information to the FBI and the media as we can.
I for one wish them the best of luck in catching him/them quick, before they do any more damage... I think this is a weird time for us to get all kooky and paranoid. If we don't look like we want this guy caught, then who are we?
Ramius, Ping.
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