What poor reporting, and complete and utter bull shat.
At either the second or third shooting, witnesses described a ME or hispanic male, and a white van with another person driving. This soon faded from the news. Either these witnesses were told to keep quiet, or they were discounted as un-PC.
The information has been there the whole time, for whatever reason it was ignored.
That is media-ese for the cops don't think the guy the witness saw was the killer.
The witness says he got a good look. It has been nearly 24 hours. In that time the cops would have a sketch made. If they though they had a sketch of the real shooter it would be all over every TV set in the world by now.
It isn't.
The odds are very high that someone would recognize a sketch that was even sort of close to the real killer. They might have the guy by tomorrow if they had a valid sketch.
There are two possibilites. The guy really saw him and they have a match from a mug shot. They are just trying to find the guy to arrest him. The object of the media stuff about a sketch is designed not to alarm the suspect and make him run before they pick him up.
The other, more likely possibility, is the guy the witness saw was not the shooter. They cops know he did not see the real shooter but they don't want the killer to be sure they don't have a make on him.
I would say that if the killer or killers are at home and no one has blown down their door, the cops are only fooling themselves and the public with the witness who didn't see the real killer. The killers know they have not been fingered. If the killer or killers are at a safe house some where it may be a different story.
The sniper has a local support base - an Islamist terror cell. This is not the last serial sniper incident this country will have to deal with. Right now, this is partly to test the effectiveness of the tactics and training of the teams.
He may be wearing a bomb while 'working.' There may be a bomb in the truck or van.
If I were a LEO, I would approach with extreme caution even if the suspect surrenders. I would make him walk at least 100 yards away from his vehicle before I approached him.
As a military man, I would want to just put a round through his brain stem even if he was surrendering. Then he couldn't trigger a bomb.