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.
You may be right on all counts! - Now what part of that bothers you?
According to your average gray matter deficient leftist, that would include Rush Limbaugh listeners, FReepers, and any person who has walked onto the grounds at Bob Jones University.
Then I guess it is our job to look different.... So different that we don't feel like we could be confused with this guy. Most people out there can tell the difference, honestly.
I have predicted privately that terrorism of this sort would start in the gun-control states first.
Sarcasm?
When I first heard the police chief speak at a news conference a day or so ago I didn't know he was the chief, I thought he was just one of the rank and file, when I heard he was the chief of police, I was totally stunned.
This man is way over his head, out of his league.....
Thanks for the update.
Our job to look different? Who the heck do you think you are? I'll look any way I dang please, missy.
BTW: its my understanding they are holding him on an unrelated arrest warrant out of Florida for auto theft.
but what happens to your premise if they DO know, but instead prefer to continue their demonization of the gun and any white person who owns one?
They misrepresent this information and ham up the damning mischaracterizations because it reflects their ideology onto the masses. playing nice will not change their tactics, it just gives them someone to laugh at along the way.
It's not about winning votes, it's about being completely fed up with this offensive mischaracterization...
You're sentiment is understandable and your suggestions are sound, in a different context. Forgive my lapse into metaphor, but you're arguing about the proper way to boil the egg with people who are just trying to get the egg off their faces....and I'm one of them.
This crap from the media really gets under your skin after a while.
At least two of the victims were in a racially mixed marriage. It's hard to tell about the others, but I do think there is a criterion for selection of targets. I don't think these triggers are pulled at random. Although, I don't have enough information to probe further, this scenario ( gunning down racially mixed couples in parking lots from a vehicle ) is depicted in a book by the late William Pierce (sp?) in some detail. This might just be spurious correlation on my part though, so I'm not going to play profiler and pretend this theory is valid.
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