Posted on 10/17/2002 7:50:00 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
I don't know who the Beltway Sniper is, but I have a pretty good idea who the authorities think he is: A Moslem man. My source? The silences, vagaries, and absurdities of the official story.
Mind you, the "experts" have told us a very different story. As the sniper kept picking off unarmed victims like fish in a barrel, we kept hearing from profilers that he was a white male in his early 20s who liked to collect guns.
On Tuesday, October 8, a woman who was a witness to the non-fatal shooting of the 13-year-old boy whose mother had just dropped him off at school, told a Fox 5 New York (non-cable) reporter that a driver had been hanging around the area, who was "neither black or white." He looked, the woman said, "Indian." Pakistanis, who are Moslem, are to most people (including Indians, in case the Pakistani is not wearing a turban) indistinguishable from Indians, who are predominantly Hindu (there is a small minority of Moslem Indians). Some North Africans and Middle Easterners may also appear "Indian" to people unfamiliar with the region's groups.
No matter; the woman was ignored by law enforcement experts and the media.
By Tuesday, October 15, the chorus of witnesses saying they saw a "Middle Eastern-looking man" -- with one dissenter, who claimed to have seen a white man -- became too loud to ignore.
The only authority behind the original profile was ... dogma. The profile was the standard, PC stereotype from central casting. (As if that weren't bad enough, on Monday, a female Fox News Channel anchor spoke of "This madperson.") As in the cases of the Unabomber and the anthrax killer, there was no factual basis for the profile; it was metaphysics dressed up to look like science. The profilers told us that the Unabomber was most likely a meticulous man who worked at a menial job. The actual terrorist, Theodore Kaczynski, turned out to be an unwashed mathematician.
Monday's fatal shooting of FBI cybercrime analyst Linda Franklin at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia, produced more eyewitnesses than any earlier shooting. On Tuesday, Associated Press reporter Allen G. Breed quoted eyewitness Robert Young, who identified an apparently Middle Eastern man fleeing the scene.
"Young said as he backed his truck out of his parking spot, a white Astro van with two men inside tried to turn into his lane. He said the driver appeared very agitated to find his way blocked and instead drove by a neighboring Chinese restaurant and out of sight.
"Young described the driver as a short man of slight build who appeared to be Mideastern. He said, 'I got a good look at the guy.'
"The driver 'seemed to be excessively irritated because he couldn't pull into my lane,' he said. 'I thought this fool was going to want to get out of the van and duke or something. But he didn't. He kept on going.'"
Based on eyewitness descriptions -- and Robert Young's is one of at least six that identify the shooter as Middle Eastern, Hispanic, or "Indian" --we can't jump to the conclusion that the shooter is al Qaeda. But we do know that random sniper shootings are part of the al Qaeda playbook. And just as the anthrax attacks followed on the heels of 911, the sniper attacks come amid a flurry of al Qaeda attacks around the world (in Afghanistan, Yemen, Kuwait and Indonesia, assuming the attempted hijacking of a Saudi airliner out of Khartoum was not al Qaeda). And we know that the profile of the shooter as a white male in his early twenties who likes to collect guns is not based on any evidence.
Militating against the young-white-male theory are also the facts that on a given operation, the sniper has never fired twice, and has always planned out his escape meticulously, so that he can get away, and get through heavy traffic in no time. The origin of one shot -- as opposed to a series of shots -- is nearly impossible for even expert witnesses to pinpoint. The quick getaways suggest a shooter and a separate driver, since a lone gunman would lose precious seconds putting away his rifle, and jumping from his shooting position, to drive away. In making that move, the shooter-driver would be more liable to have an accident, whereas a separate driver would have surveyed the area for cross traffic and pedestrians, and hit the gas at the crack of gunfire. All of the above suggests some very cool customers. Contrast such characteristics to, say, the desperate cross-country journey of spree-killer Andrew Cunanan in 1997.
And yet, the authorities sought to kill the Middle Eastern/Hispanic/Indian story, as soon as it appeared in the media. Montgomery County (MD.) Police Department spokeswoman, Capt. Nancy Demme said, "Unfortunately, distance and darkness, and perhaps adrenaline have made [witnesses] unable to give a clear composite that we can disseminate. I know that's not what the public wants to hear. The only common denominator thus far is male. We don't have a refined description to go by."
(Note that Capt. Demme also claimed, dishonestly, that "weapons are interchangeable." The sniper has, in fact, used the same weapon, which caused identical striations in the bullets he fired.)
And yet, the same October 16 AP story that quoted Capt. Demme, reporter Allan G. Breed wrote that, "More than one bystander reported seeing the shooter, but their descriptions were not consistent, investigators said. The gunman was variously described as dark-skinned, olive-skinned, Middle Eastern and Hispanic."
In the real world, there is nothing inconsistent about different people describing the same person as "dark-skinned, olive-skinned, Middle Eastern [or] Hispanic." To call those terms "inconsistent," sounds like political correctness run amok.
Montgomery County Police Department Public Information Officer Lucille Bauer could not confirm the statement Breed attributed to investigators. Bauer told Toogood Reports, "Information coming from our Media Services Division, from our Task Force, is not going into any kind of specifics, because we don't want, as our Chief Moose has said, anybody to have tunnel vision, to think, they see a white female, and think she can't be involved, because we said we're looking for a Hispanic male or a Middle Eastern male. Uh, so, we particularly have not given out any specific information that we have received from witnesses. Again, I am not sure who would have provided that information, but it, it cannot be confirmed officially for you. And we were hoping by Capt. Demme making the statement that witness information was inconclusive, uh, did not give us the basis for providing a composite, that would end the speculation on what the shooter or shooters may look like. We don't have confirmed, accurate information to give out, and we're not in the business of speculation, so we're not giving out any information."
If the most important public aspect to a manhunt is, as Chief Moose says, not to have "tunnel vision," law enforcement has for hundreds of years been all wrong. Lawmen have always sought to develop sketches or drawings of suspects, based on witness descriptions, which could be disseminated, in order to gain the public's -- and other lawmen's -- help in catching bad guys. However, as Chief Moose implies, people will then be oriented to look for someone who resembles the suspect, rather than someone who doesn't.
If I took Chief Moose at his word, I'd have to conclude that he is either a gibbering idiot, or that he has had a psychotic reaction to earlier press leaks of information he'd provided to the media. I'm going to leave the "psychotically anti-media lawman" theory be for now, but this I will say: Chief Charles Moose is not a gibbering idiot. (And I don't believe that Allan Breed lied.) In an age of racial profiling hoaxes, Chief Moose has let himself be disarmed by political correctness.
The Beltway Sniper investigation is reminding some of my correspondents of the anthrax investigation. The FBI fatally bungled that case, when it committed early on to a politically correct (white guy) profile, from which it never recovered. The Bureau then sought to railroad scientist Steven Hatfill, to cover for its ineptitude. Note too the Bureau's comically incredible denial that the attack at LAX Airport's El Al counter on July 4, in which two people were murdered and several wounded by heavily armed Egyptian terrorist, Hesham Muhammad Ali Hadayet, was a terrorist act. Such ridiculous claims further eroded the FBI's already deteriorating reputation.
As I write this, one of the profilers the FBI relied on to bungle the Unabomber investigation, is on Fox News Channel, criticizing the Beltway Sniper for not sticking to the profile! Note that the Feds never solved the Unabomber case; it was solved instead by the killer, Theodore Kaczynski's, brother.
So far, nine people have been murdered and two critically wounded by the Beltway Sniper. Instead of learning from their mistakes, the feds are compounding them by bringing the military into the investigation, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids federal military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Even if the killer or killers should prove not to be al Qaeda, if they turn out to be non-whites, we will be left to ask if lives could have been saved, had the FBI not broadcast a knee-jerk, politically correct profile, and had Chief Charles Moose not squelched descriptions of one of the suspects. We will then develop the habit of ignoring or ridiculing all profiles provided by law enforcement, the way we respond to the claims of junkies or drunks or other folks we know to be pathological liars. That could have tragic results, if one day lawmen cry wolf, and the "wolf" really is a white male. Political correctness kills.
I've wondered about that for quite a while now. It's becoming more absurd every time some authority says the Gitmo crowd is being questioned. New plans are being formulated and implemented that those guys don't know anything about.
Agape,
DrMike
He's said to be a former Iraqi intelligence officer, from one of Saddam's Republican Guard units. Used to hang around with a kid from the U.S. First Infantry Division...a guy named *Tim McVeigh*....
Additional info in wall Street Journal writeup *here*.
ROTFL
Oh, no! Not the Michael's Crafts store theory!
What if we're bringing the military into it because we KNOW it's terroists? If war is being waged on our soil, it's absolutely ok to bring in the military.
Excellent point, but something tells me the gubmint would be obliged to identify the killings as such, so as to make it clear that it's not violating the PC (pardon the pun) law, which is essential to the separation of powers and states' rights.
Especially on airline food!
Love that "black hat," LOL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.