Posted on 10/11/2002 8:54:57 PM PDT by MVV
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‘Raw Intensity’
A Closer Look at the Man Behind the Sniper Investigation
Oct. 11
— Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, the man leading the search for the serial sniper who is terrifying residents in the Washington, D.C., area, is known as a passionate and sometimes controversial man.
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Moose, who spent six years as the first black police chief in Portland, Ore., is no stranger to controversial cases.
In 1994, Moose was saddled with the difficult task of answering media questions about Tonya Harding, the figure skater convicted of hindering the prosecution in a plot to injure rival Nancy Kerrigan.
Steve Duin, a reporter for the The Oregonian, told ABCNEWS that he remembers Moose as a man who doesn't hide his passionate side and sometimes his temper when on the job.
"You are getting right now, I believe, a very raw, unfiltered look at a very raw, unfiltered guy. Chief Moose is high energy and he's high strung ... he's a guy who has needed and who has taken anger management classes," Duin said. Moose's intensity has been revealed in a few of his daily news conferences since the series of sniper shootings, which has left seven dead, began last week.
After a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded by a sniper's bullet Monday, Moose held an emotional press conference. "Shooting a kid — it's getting to be really, really personal now," he said as a tear rolled down his left cheek.
The police chief also showed anger in a press conference Wednesday after the media reported leaked information about the tarot card police discovered at the scene where the boy was shot.
"We've got retired police chiefs out there looking for other jobs taking advantage of this situation to get their face on television," he said during the press conference. "Chief Moose has a temper but he has also a real raw intensity, you are seeing a real genuine guy," Duin said.
Moose, 49, grew up in Lexington, N.C., and earned a doctorate in urban studies at Portland State University.
"Here's a guy who has a doctorate and yet sometimes talks like he's some ninth-grade kid," Duin said.
Moose helped lower crime and introduced community policing in Oregon's largest city until he left for Maryland in 1999.
When Moose was named Portland's chief in 1993, he and his wife made national news when they bought a house in one of the toughest neighborhoods in town.
"Being part of that community makes my message a real message, but it also says that the people that live in and around my house don't have to worry about my house being a crackhouse," he told KATU-TV in Portland in a 1997 interview.
Moose also said that he and his wife Sandy have dealt with painful instances of discrimination over the years because he is black and she is white.
"Being a person that is in an interracial marriage, my wife and I were subject to many different types of discrimination, sometimes subtle, sometimes very blatant," he said during his interview with KATU-TV.
As the father of two sons, now 22 and 27, Moose admits he often gets emotionally fired up, especially when it comes to the safety of children.
The man who has become the face of the sniper case told KATU-TV, in the 1997 interview, that he has often regretted letting his emotions get the best of him over the years. "I know I did some things I wish I hadn't done, tried to learn from those things," he said. "I tried to move on." |
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