[Peach]

Overnight news: The NYP reports that sources revealed detectives have a surveillance tape from Wednesday evening's shooting that may have a picture of the shooter's face and his accomplice (accomplice mentioned in next-to-last paragraph of article). A 36-year old Georgia man was briefly detained near Friday's shooting as police compared his face with a photo from the tape. The man is a 5' 9" white male of medium build with sandy brown hair and a mustache.

[Peach]

Ping

[Oldeconomybuyer]

	A composite image produced by the FBI (news - web sites) of a box truck is shown after being released by Montgomery (Md.) County Police, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002. Law enforcement is searching for the truck, believed to be linked to the sniper shootings in the Washington D.C. region. (AP Photo/Montgomery County Police) - Oct 12 7:30 PM ET
	A composite image produced by the FBI (news - web sites) of a box truck is shown after being released by Montgomery (Md.) County Police, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002. Law enforcement are searching for the truck, believed to be linked to the sniper shootings in the Washington D.C. region. The writing on the side reads, 'unknown words.' (AP Photo/Montgomery County Police) - Oct 12 7:28 PM ET

[Skywalk]

So with the bombings in Bali and Finland(and a few more obscure ones in the last couple of weeks) and the attacks in Kuwait, can we start asserting more confidently that this is NOT angry white nut(s)?

[Born on the Storm King]

I just have a few comments to make, most of those comments being in reference to my experience in the La Belle Discotheque bombing murder investigation in Berlin, Germany in 1986, in which I was a criminal investigator. In the first place, in reference to the Second Amendment, this sniper situation is further aggravated because Maryland does not allow concealed weapons permits. But worse than that, in this particular situation, all able men and women in good standing should be permitted to carry a rifle at sling arms! This place (the DC area) is not the America of our Founding Fathers, but the land of the Philistines.

Now, in reference to my experience in La Belle, somebody in law enforcement working on the sniper case knows who the perpetrators are right now, right at this moment. Those LEOs have to argue their asses off! An investigation like this is like a Chinese fire drill---and there's a lot of socializing and ass kissing going on---you can't work on the case and jawjack your piehole at the same time! One cannot sift through, read and concentrate upon thousands of pages of criminal information and run around the police station like a frivilous dilletante at a cocktail party at the same time!

This sniper case fascinates me because it is a mystery just like La Belle was. I solved La Belle on Day Two, and I just shot my mouth off the rest of the time! But I did alot of sifting through data to defend my argumentation. (I was the criminal information analyst.) BTW, they didn't pickup the La Belle suspects for over 10 years and finally convicted them on November 10, 2001.

[doosee]

Not sure if anyone else has posed this question. In the gas station shooting where the state trooper was across the street, why didnt the trooper head for the hillside by the motel where the shot was fired? His instinct may have been to help the victim, but there were many people at that service station. Was this a blunder?

[elfman2]

Undaunted by her gubernatorial loss, Janet invests in a cheap paint job and continues her Red Truck Tour in the nations capital.

[tomkat]

my instincts are occasionally pretty good, and they continue to insist that this 'surveillance tape'
is very likely just as much wishful thinking as the notion that something as conspiuous as that box truck could have
eluded being spotted all this time.

i'm in PA, and have nothing more to go on than y'all do, but anyone who is deluding themselves into thinking we are/will be
getting the whole story on this might want to have a look at how some other fairly recent events have been 'handled'
re the deaths of americans, the involvement of salamis, and the 'concern' for the truth shown by the alphabet mess that
passes for LE these days ...

CONSPIRACY: The Okla. City-Sept. 11 Connection

<tinfoil repellent>

[uncbob]

If that picture of the truck is accurate then it will be found soon.
Everybody is going to be on the lookout and there are scads of cell phones in use

It is either being repainted or has been hidden in some garage and even then people having seeing the thing in the past will call in

My guess is the perps are worried

[Iscool]

That truck doesn't look like much of a shooting platform...

I wouldn't be surprised if the terrorist has never seen the inside of a white truck...Any white truck...

[evad]

I seen numerous comments that this scenario is right out of the Islamic Jihadist "playbook".

Anyone got a link to this "playbook"?

Thanks, Dave

[MattinNJ]

I am still sticking with my original prediction. A hired sniper who saw duty in Sarajevo or Chechnya (where women and children were routinely hit by snipers). I though it might be ex-Spetsnaz but another Freeper informed me that Russians hate muslims and would not take their money. Then again, when Russian mobsters first got to our shores they used to kill people for $ 100.00. Maybe they would reconsider if they are getting paid $ 50,000.00 from the oil sheiks for each kill.

[Grut]

This is all way too much speculation on way too little data, but while we're all enjoying ourselves why not consider that one of the sniper's criteria is having a white truck - any white truck - in the vicinity when he chooses a victim?

[Flyer]

This is what it does.

[isthisnickcool]

I posted this a few days back.

There is a site here that gives the Muslim prayer times.

It appears that none of the shootings are right at or near prayer times. I'm just pointing out that some people that happen to be Muslims have been wanting to kill Americans and terrorize Americans. That's what's happening here.

[Doc Savage]

Watch for copycat snipers to start pooping up in other cities. If this were AQ and their goal was to instill fear into the general populace, they would have simultaneously begun killing in all major cities. Now that's terror!

[TexasGunRunner]

He is not a 'sniper' - he/she isn't that good, doesn't deserve the honor, and the shots are not that impressive (150 yards is nothing).

He is a killer - I favor the term Tarot Card Killer

[Pete]

This morning I had idea about how maybe the public could help solve these crimes. There are hundreds of webcams around the DC/Maryland/VA area - some of them streaming video. I thought that if we could get a whole bunch of volunteers to monitor the webcams, we could compile any sitings of suspect vehicles. Right now, that would be a white box truck. I know there are thousands of these vehicles and it is a long shot, but I feel like I, we, have to do something.

To that end, I went ahead and set up a website that allows volunteers to register sitings by recording vehicle type, date, time and place along with any description into a database. This database will only be available to law enforcement either retrospectively but also hopefully in real-time. I am still working on that functionality.

The site is still in Beta but I hope to go live as soon as possible. I am looking for a few FREEPERS to test drive it to work out any bugs and get suggestions for improvements. The site is called sniperwatch.com. I registered the domain name today and it will likely be on the Domain Name Server system in the next day or two. Until then, the site can be accessed at the following URL.

http://207.99.96.100/index.html

If you are interested in testing the Beta site, please respond to this post. I will contact the selected testers through Freep mail. If you end up not being one of the testers, you can still check out the site but please don't sign up yet since it is still in Beta. Testers will go to the site and create a userid and post sample sitings. After the Beta test, I will be deleting the test userids and sitings from the database. Also, if you have suggestions/comments, post back here or contact me through freep mail. The email link on the site is not yet functional.

Again, I know this is a long shot but even if there is only a remote possibility it could help, I have to do it.

[SteveH]

It would be nice if someone local could look closely into shooting #8 (Fredricksburg crafts store parking lot; unidentified woman wounded, not killed). I am guessing the intent was to kill as usual. The woman has been released from the hospital and this sounds like the least serious of the shootings that found their mark at all. I would imagine that studying this shooting could tell more about the sniper(s). The physical layout of the #8 shooting could be analyzed to see if there is some difference between that layout and the others, for example.

There seem to be about three major hypotheses: (1) Arab terrorists; (2) local blue collar redneck crazies; and (3) local student redneck crazies. A little bit more info might permit disqualifying one or the other.

Conjectures (no better than anyone elses at this point): The more distance between the shooter and the scene, the safer the shooter is. The sites ring the greater DC area and the shootings happened during rush hour, so it seems possible that the shooter is based inside the greater DC area and getaway-- commutes back to central home base from the sites, against traffic. If he/she/they were going with traffic, the getaways would be slow and risk getting caught in traffic (classic example, traffic accident). For this to work the shooter would have to be driving some extremely common vehicle, the better to escape undetected and be more difficult to screen for. They are likely to be driving now the most common types of small mobile vehicles (bar none) in the local area-- 2 and 4 door sedans, 2 door PUs, and jeeps... but focusing on vehicles (hatchbacks, PUs, jeeps, etc.) with ability to shoot directly out the rear...

I don't think they are workers with a business "in the loop." It seems like overkill just to do some simple sniping. Same could be accomplished with anonymous imported types from outside the area with less ties, IDs, money, etc. required and a couple of motel rooms or apartments. Having a business involved seems contrary to the notion of a leaderless activated but relatively untraceable (to top leadership) cell. Anonymity is an advantage. Composure and emotional detachment from potential victims. Don't have to interface with them immediately before / after shootings, lack of composure, bragging, differences in emotional outlook, etc. potentially arousing suspicion. These last considerations make foreign terrorism still somewhat most likely hypothesis IMO.