This shooter knows where the holes are.
The holes are mapped and such maps can be acquired through the following agencies, to name just a few:
From CNews online ---Sunday, September 7, 1997
Driving schools teach evasive techniques to VIPs and their chauffeurs
By KAREN SCHWARTZ -- AP Business Writer
Those who drive the world's rulers, corporate titans and celebrities are often trained to protect their clients from carjackers, kidnappers, terrorists -- and even celebrity photographers, who present a unique challenge.
On one hand, "You're a security guard and your mindset is attack, attack, attack," said Tony Scotti, who runs the Scotti School Of Protective Driving in Medford, Mass. "You don't want to treat these guys with cameras like they're the bad guys."
On the other hand, "What if one of the paparazzi isn't a paparazzi?" he asks.
A week after the car wreck that killed Princess Diana, her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, investigators haven't yet determined whether responsibility rests primarily with Paul or with the paparazzi who pursued the car into a traffic tunnel that night.
Police sources have said Paul, who worked for the Al Fayed family, was drunk.
But many continue to blame the paparazzi. They are such a constant presence in the lives of the wealthy that chauffeurs trained in professional driving schools are specifically taught how to evade them.
In Scotti's three-day class, which costs $2,150, drivers learn to react if someone cuts them off, to take out other cars by ramming, and to escape from tight spots by spinning the car 180 degrees in a so-called bootlegger's turn.
In a situation with paparazzi, "I would take the car wide and swing back and forth so they cannot get alongside you," said Bob Bondurant, a former race-car driver who runs a school in Phoenix.
Those who have taken the course are amazed at reports that Paul was drunk and that he was driving at high speed.
"As a bodyguard, you would never allow whoever you're protecting to be put in danger, so you'd never drive if you're drunk and you'd never allow somebody to go that fast," said Chris Acker, a New York City police officer who received special driver training when he was with the Secret Service in 1982.
There are conflicting reports as to whether Paul had received such high-performance driver training. Some Fayed family bodyguards have taken the Scotti program, although not Paul, Scotti said.
Malta Martin, who is head of the corporate chauffeur and executive protection course at the Bondurant school, said she was once chased down the freeway by some guys who were hassling her.
"I knew enough to drive around the other vehicles, how to control the car properly," she recalls. She quickly scurried around to an exit and got off the freeway.
"Awareness is very important," she said. "If you are being pursued, then perhaps don't enter a narrow tunnel where the chances of something happening are higher."
In addition to squealing tires and ramming other cars, the courses offer a great deal of less exciting driver-training and even some classroom work.
"Statistically, the biggest threat for you and I isn't being shot by a disgruntled employee or being killed by a terrorist, it's being hurt or killed in a car accident," said Matt Croke, director of training at BSI Inc. in Summit Point, W.Va., which trains people from the State Department and military, as well as civilians.
BSI has taught more than 10,000 people in the past two decades, while Scotti has taught more than 25,000 people in the basic protective driving course, and another 400 in more advanced courses that deal with motorcades and attack recognition. More than 700 corporations, including 85 Fortune 100 companies, have sent their drivers to the course, Scotti said.
All Scotti courses end with the students evading their instructors in an imaginary scenario, like the one in which they must protect their client from the paparazzi or from a hitman armed with a paint gun.
The Bondurant school was the first to offer the course and first ran it about 25 years ago when an oil company requested special training. Over the years, more than 3,000 people have taken the course, Bondurant said.
"Mainly, students learn how to be in charge of and in control of the car and the people in the back seat," Bondurant said.
The driver "has to have a cool head, be alert and aware at all times," Bondurant said, "and you do not drink on the job."
Driving schools:
- Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, Phoenix --- (800) 842-7223 --- Offers a four-day executive protection and anti-kidnapping course for $2,975.
- BSI, Inc., Summit Point, W.Va. --- (304) 725-6512 --- Offers a three-and-a-half day course for $1,395.
- International Training Inc. in West Point, Va. --- (800) 604-4484 --- Operates customized courses in Virginia and Texas.
- San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department in San Bernardino, Calif. --- (909)887-7550 --- Offers a five-day protection specialist course for $1,000.
- Scotti School Of Protective Driving, Medford, Mass. --- (800) 343-0046 --- Offers classes in Michigan, Peru and Switzerland.
A three-day protective driving course costs $2,150; a five-day executive protection class costs $1,850 and a three-day attack recognition class, which doesn't involve any driving, costs $875.
Many upper-muckety-mucks in mid-East-dom are surrounded by men who have gone through much more intensive training.
Again, they know where the holes are, the culverts and concrete drainage systems throughout our country ... where bad guys can travel yet about which, most "taxpayers" do not know anything.
Locator ^
The shooter is using U.S. 15, U.S. 17, U.S. 29, and U.S. 522 --- his major north-south axis is Leesburg, Warrenton, Culpeper, and Orange.
The maps do not show that some of the connecting, old back roads were, over a century ago, the main routes used, other than rail ... meaning, they take you to almost all the places you'd want to visit, while avoiding the highways.
The area is full of old coach roads that are still passible (sp?).
You could live a long time in the Quantico Marine Base before anybody there ever got a clue.
The metro-centricity of the governmentum is resisting the challenge.
To get the shooter, the law has to post every one of the intersections ... just like in the old days.
I can understand how difficult it is to accept that the high-powered L.E. budget package did not come with the guide books on how to deploy pickets to capture and reconnoiter.
What I'm saying is, that Sheridan is required --- the old playbook.
When growing up, I spent a lot of time exploring one just built in my town - you could go for miles and miles in that thing, unseen.
Note to graphics posters: Please, PLEASE add the height= and width= paramaters to your IMG tags to allocate space on the page for your graphics. Without them, this thread takes several minutes to load on my poor old dial-up connection.
For that reason, I won't be back to this thread.
At those schools, you can get maps of routes throughout metropolitan areas, which are not on the "normal" street maps --- concrete drainage systems, old coach roads, etc. (The maps are also available to foreign "protective services.")
The general D.C. area has many of, such evasion routes, and both domestic and foreign people experienced with such routes.
In addition ---
The shooter may be following the routes that a person who does not want to get snarled in commuter traffic will take; these routes happen to be the same used by the Confederates to move around Union forces.
The shooter is using U.S. 15, U.S. 17, U.S. 29, and U.S. 522 --- his major north-south axis is Leesburg, Warrenton, Culpeper, and Orange.
Not to mention ---
You could live a long time in the Quantico Marine Base before anybody there ever got a clue.
The metro-centricity of the general D.C. governmentum is resisting the challenge to go after the shooter.
Well, to get the shooter, the General Sheridan playbook will have to be dusted off.
The people of Virginia will have to muster in order to post every one of the intersections ... just like in the old days.
IMHO, L.E. must be the cavalry, but they must employ scouts, that is: the VA Militia; meaning that the governor ought to call up the VA National Guard, put them in plain clothes or camo as necessary and post them, just like in the old days, as pickets.
Virginia needs many more eyes and ears --- it has them, but to date has not used its resources ... because political correctness dictates that ONLY immediate government officialdom can "do something about it!"