Posted on 10/15/2002 2:17:07 AM PDT by Peach
To avoid multiple vanity threads regarding any news from press conferences, let's keep a live commentary thread going again today.
Note: This is the graphics-free thread. Graphics can be found under the thread titled "Beltway Sniper Shootings-Graphics Only"
BTTT.
There's the entrance directly at the front of the store (actually from both sides), and another entrance into the parking lot directly off the Rt. 50 access road, and next to the rear of the Fortune restaurant.
What struck me is that she was supposed to have been in the covered portion of the parking lot/garage. Just watching the scene afterward, it looks like there wouldn't be much room at all (clearance) between the roof of the covered area and the tops of other vehicles in the rest of the parking lot.
Is there any area that is slightly elevated?
If the shooter(s) are smart, then they wouldn't dare mess with the Corps. Unarmed or not, dealing with hundreds of very pissed-off Marines is not generally a survivable experience.
Or an aerial photo? Just paste up the URL, I'll find it.
Are you refering to Herndon?
Whatever the shooter is, he's not mentally ill -- notwithstanding the media's constant efforts to profile the sniper as a crazy white militia man.
By its nature "mind" can't be ill; only the body can be ill. And no bodily illness causes one to become a professional sniper murderer.
The problem is spiritual, not mental. It's called sin. The murderer is evil. Not sick. He will be dealth with by an armed citizen or a policeman, not by a psychologist.
Get a freaking grip
How many people died on the beltway yesterday? So the odds of dying via sniper are slightly higher than the odds you face everyday when you get in your car. Do you cower at home for fear of dying in a car wreck? I can't believe the level of fear I am seeing from the area.
We have to grow a collective spine or we won't deserve freedom.
What the hell has happened to the people in this country?
All the more reason for shooter(s) to attempt to show who's really the boss !!!
It's the witness reports. Witnesses ID'd the truck and - perhaps - the shooter.
If they shot from the opposite side of Rt. 50, it is simply too dark, and too far, for witnesses in the HD parking lot to have seen anything in that detail.
My presumption is based solely on that fact that there are witness reports, which means that the shooter must have been parked briefly on the access road, which is 10 feet from the HD parking lot, and directly adjacent to it.
If that's the case, they were on a one-way street, which intersects (dead ends) at Patrick Henry Drive, and that's a right-turn-only intersection. Trying to get directly onto Rt. 50 (westbound OR eastbound) from that intersection would be more than a traffic infraction, it would actually be dangerous and bizarre (this is a very busy intersection at day and night).
Yes, I suppose they could have made the right, made a U-turn, sat calmly at the (very very long) traffic light, and headed west on Rt. 50 when they got the green light, but that doesn't seem sensible. These shooters seem to be very adaptable, and they certainly must have taken a lesson from the Friday roadblocks on all the interstates. So why would they head toward 495, an obvious spot for a roadblock, and they still have 10-15 minutes to get there, again after waiting at a long traffic light within eyeball distance of the HD parking lot (maybe 100 yards?). The whole scenario doesn't wash.
Rt. 7 west pretty quickly leads into Falls Church City (after maybe 1/4 mile or so from HD). The speed limit - strictly enforced - is 25 MPH for about 3 to 4 miles. Stoplight after stoplight, even at 9:30PM. Not a good choice for an escape route.
You didn't ask about Rt. 50 east. That also doesn't wash. It's a big, open road, not highly trafficked once past Seven Corners, and doesn't lead anywhere except into DC. Not the kind of road where one can blend in at 9:30PM, which is what these shooters seem to do.
Rt. 7 eastbound has enough 9:30PM traffic to make that possible.
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