Given that there is at least one white van on every block and every quarter mile of urban road in this country and it wasn't said that the perp had one, just that there was one in the proximity of the crime that's incredibly lame.
It is also the ONLY thing they have to work with. How would you like to be the head cop in these jurisdictions? They are up against it and it is not just Chief Moose it is every county that the sniper has hit. There may not be a white van but if and when the sniper is found in a white van then the cops would be ran out of town if they had ignored witness reports. I can't believe the anal-retentive wannabe constitutional scholars that cannot apply the most rudimentary element of common sense to their arguments.