Beltway Sniper Shootings-FR Commentary-Wednesday, Oct. 16

Fox News, CNN, Press Conferences | October 16, 2002 | Fox News, CNN, Press Conferences

[Peach]

To avoid multiple vanity threads regarding any news from press conferences, let's keep a live commentary thread going again today.

[Skywalk]

I hope not Seattle! I think of my mom and I standing at a bus stop, or my girlfriend at a gas station. What an awful, awful thought!

And to think, I moved from Silver Spring, MD a year ago.

[livius]

" That would make the Tarot card a message to them not us."

A very interesting observation!

[Chemist_Geek]

What bothers me is that clearly LE don't want citizen help,,won't release license numbers, etc, purposely vague. Now that makes me think that a citizen trying to block one of these guys might unleash something worse than just getting killed.

I agree. People should not try to be police, just be good witnesses and have their cell-phones handy. However, in Virginia, there are many citizens with carry permits and if there's a clear and present danger of lethal force being used criminally, then, meeting that with lethal force in self-defense is authorized.

I am concerned with the seeming desire not to scare the populace or offend Politically Correct sensibilities by mentioning the T-word, nor releasing any useful information. We're adults, we can handle the truth.

Usually, in a major crime like this was at first, the police are all over the news shows with sketches and requests for the people to keep their eyes open. Well, this time around, all we hear is "Go about your business as usual, and by the way, keep your eyes open." For what, exactly?

[Peach]

Someone asked here today how the 13-year old boy is doing. Fox News just reported he is still in critical but stable condition and doctors continue to keep him sedated. Prayers.

[jpl]

There is a worldnetdaily story today that the feds have supressed a middle easteren terrorist link to avoid panic in DC.

Avoid panic, or avoid a backlash against Middle Easterners?

The latter. Even today, most of the bureaucracy is more terrified of regular American citizens than they are of Islamic terrorists.

[tomkat]

Now, how can I get rid of the silly question stuff on the sidebar :-)

someone might've gotten to this one already, but ...

just vote in the poll (silly question stuff), and it'll move to the very bottom of your sidebar,
but i've not found a way to get rid of it completely.

[Skywalk]

Yeah, exactly! I love this "go about your daily lives." Well Linda Franklin was going about her damn daily life and she's dead. Granted, when someone targets you from a distance, it would be hard to not fall victim to them, but by giving the public information, they put us all at risk.

Perhaps when someone attacks us with botulism, the Feds response to reports of "olive skinned men" scouting the target locations would be "islam is peace" "we dont want to paint any group" etc. And nothing to see here, move along.

Guess they gotta line up corpses at the altar of PC or coddling an irrational populace.

[dinasour]

Interesting, considering sources inside the investigation are starting to consider the card a red herring, used to confuse the task force.

Or a piece of disinformation to confuse the public.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe that the Moose-in-the-headlights has formally acknowledged the existence of the card, or what it actually says.

Given that he seems to have a vested interest in protecting practitioners of the Religion of Peace from any community-based profiling, and that this is the one piece of exculpatory evidence, why not release it? Maybe Beavis's Mom will recognize the handwriting.

Perhaps the card doesn't exist. Or, is the quote "I am God", just a mistranslation from the original Arabic?

[md2576]

"I was wondering if it were possible that if there are 3, could one of them stay behind as a 'witness' to give false info?"

If this is true it would explain my own personal opinion of who I think is probable suspects. It would also explain the descriptions of a woman. Possibly the team I have spoke of is still together, one in Fairfax and one in Newport News. The person in Fairfax could be married and his wife participates in some shootings. This would also give credit to my 123 wedge theory that would point to Newport News beltway as being the corner of the wedge from D.C. to Richmond to Newport News beltways. Who knows, I could totally be off but it is none the less intriguing. If I am wrong then perhaps some of my suspicions could be looked at for other people fitting this same type of military style paintball sniper. They have fascinations with guns and they practice kill people in competitions all the time. Snipers also wear camouflage. Perhaps this sniper is wearing a ME look while performing the shootings to throw off eye witness reports.

[Skywalk]

but by NOT giving the public information

[berkeleybeej]

Like I said...the BEST. thx

[KSCITYBOY]

Folks are getting way too sidetracked by the tarot card. Terrorist's have egos too. I've always thought that if there was more than one person doing this then it was terrorists. Maybe two, three or even four. If they have been in the US awhile they would be even more likely to taunt the cops with something like a tarot card and more likely to say they are God. I could see one of our own snipers in say Afganistan leaving a message for the Taliban saying something like "see you soon - alla. So the tarot card really means very little. As for the race of the shooter, there maybe a couple of mideasterners and even some ethnic Albanian moslems involved. The Albanian might look much more like a white American than the ME's. There could even be a johnny taliban type working with them. One other point people use to discredit the terrorist theory is that terrorist always claim credit - wrong when did they claim credit for the WTC - A tape was found where they discussed their victory but they never claimed credit in fact they denied they did it. If these guys claimed credit it would make them easier to catch so why would they. They want to kill Americans and disrupt our lives and economy -- they don't want to get caught.

[ThinkingMan]

I hope I am wrong- I really hope that they are stupid enough to keep operating in the area where they are. They will like likely get caught with the next one or two shootings if they do.

It just seems amazing to me that no one in the area has seen anything at their neighboors house that would lead the police to the killers.

[tomkat]

[SteveH]

Presuming the shooter went out of the van to shoot, and used an AK-74, would there not be a spent shell ejected? Presuming the shell was not recovered, the shooter would either have to bend down and pick it up, or have a shell catcher on the rifle... any word on this?

[Sacajaweau]

Well, nothing unusual about white vans and if they've set themselves up un a short term rental apt somewhere, those around them wouldn't notice. For all we know, one of them owns a car dealership and has white vans available all the time plus access to plates, etc..

Sac

[tomkat]

guy named haney, 'founding member of delta force', just confirmed on cnn his thinking that our postulates here - that the shooter has a driver/spotter hauling his goathumpin' ass around - makes the most sense to him.

well, he didn't say 'goathumpin', but bet he woulda, given some leeway  

[CJ Wolf]

It's elementary my dear ET.

[Deguello]

"Doesn't anyone find it odd that this German witness who..."

Yes, this is his 15 minutes of fame. Saw him on Fox this morning. His story was not credible for me.

[Chemist_Geek]

Presuming the shooter went out of the van to shoot, and used an AK-74, would there not be a spent shell ejected? Presuming the shell was not recovered, the shooter would either have to bend down and pick it up, or have a shell catcher on the rifle... any word on this?

Yes, AK-74s are semiautomatic and will automatically eject the spent shell casing.

Yes, the shooter would either have had to install a brass catcher or manually sanitize the scene.

I haven't heard anything, but then again I'm cubically and laboratorially challenged. ;-)