Authorities missed earlier chance to arrest sniper Mohamed

msnbc.com ^ | 10/24/02 | msnbc

[zook]

Authorities appear to have missed a chance to apprehend Muhammad six days after the shooting spree began. In the predawn hours of Oct. 8, the day after a 13-year-old boy was wounded in Bowie, Md., Baltimore police approached the Chevrolet Caprice that was seized early Thursday and found Muhammad sleeping, according to Regina Alvarado, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore police. The car was parked in a lot near an on-ramp to Interstate 83.

Muhammad was not held, but his name and the vehicle were put into a police database, sources told the Washington Post.

“Everyone was looking for a white car with white people,” said a police source, according to the Post.

[leilani]

"So, what do ya'll think? Just a way to blame this on the US Military? Or a substantive cause? Or both?"

Two problems with your "theory": 1.He (allegedly) had a very long history of irrational violence against others long before he ever got to the Gulf. 2. None of the colleagues he woked side-by-side with ever started picking off schoolkids with a rifle as they walked into school, the way he did.

Better start floating another defense, counselor, this one just ain't gonna fly.

[browardchad]

I hope they wouldn't have looked into just anybody's trunk without any probable cause

Do you believe there was probable cause when police dragged any male driving a white van in the Washington area out of their vehicle and cuffed them, last Saturday? Was their probable cause when they were searching white vehicles at gunpoint on that night?

BTW, a car fitting the description of the one Mohammed was driving was reported at one of the Montgomery crime scenes on October 3 -- that car's quite a bit more distinctive than a white van -- but I guess that wasn't probable cause?

[MagnusMat]

Good work Samadams

[Lucas1]

“Everyone was looking for a white car with white people,” said a police source, according to the Post.

LOL...what can be said!!!! The EXPERTS WERE WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG...across the board. There were a lot of people in this forum screaming this all along. Sad...state of affairs.

[Enterprise]

"The media is feverishly trying to whip up an insanity case for these guys."

I wonder if they were white, Republican, Southern Baptist, and members of the NRA if the media would be trying to whip up a case of insanity.

[Lucas1]

“There is no doubt that a small but significant number of Gulf War veterans become homicidal” because of Gulf War Syndrome, said Baumzweiger,until recently a staff psychiatrist and neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is a leading expert on Gulf War Syndrome.

WOW...interesting stuff

[Bogey78O]

I heard he was an E-5 after 17 years in service. I thought they booted people for that.

[leilani]

“Everyone was looking for a white car with white people,” said a police source, according to the Post" I agree with you, NOBODY even blinked twice about the rampant racial profiling which occurred when all of these "professional criminal profilers" on cable TV whom we all now know didn't know jack & couldn't profile their own right hand said that whoever was doing this had to be an alienated "white man in his twenties"! Ha! They all look spectacularly stupid, not to mention racist & hypocritical today, that's for damn sure.

[Lysander]

People who don't spend their days marinating their brains in THC know this.

Then maybe you might know that 50% of all police activity is spent on drug crimes and most of the remaining activity is on crimes that were committed to get drug money. They only inflict damage to our society, the drug cartels continue to function unabated by any drug war.

Glad you did recognize that there is a difference between consensual crimes and real crimes! These cops did not solve this crime, it was the stupid criminals bragging about doing a murder in Alabama that caught them.

It was a damn confession.

[virgil]

I wonder if they were white, Republican, Southern Baptist, and members of the NRA if the media would be trying to whip up a case of insanity.

If they were these things the media would be waving torches and screaming "Death to the monster"

[Fester Chugabrew]

"I felt that this was all a charade to show the public that 'something was being done.'"

I don't think the LEO's were in a position to plan charades. Nor were they in a position to publicize their leads lest they spook the perps. While I hated to see so many innocent folks harassed on account of their vehicle choice, dire circumstances required drastic measures. One can only hope both the law and citizenry undertood at the time.

[leilani]

What is your point? Witnesses were saying right & left that white vans were at the crime scene.(I'll grant you, white vans are so ubiquitous that, odds are, they are, and will be at every crime scene everyhere in the country, anytime a crime takes place.) Yet you say that instead of following the witnesses' testimony, the police should have just out of the blue started dragging in every black guy who was sleeping in a 1990 blue/burgandy chevy caprice into custody? What the hell are you asking us all to buy here tonight? Just for the hell of it, I'm gonna repeat my point: nobody can win for losing with you know-it-all anal-retentive typs, so who the hell cares anymore?

[eno_]

The murder solution rate nationally has fallen from 80% to 65%. The numbers prove it: Police are incompetent boobs. The fact the sniper fell into their hands (after being right under their noses) is just a big fat illustration of this fact.

Solution? End the Drug War, fire half the cops, and send the other half back to school to learn how to solve real crime.

[Bob Evans]

CBS reported tonight that this same car was stopped several times during this spree for running stop lights and speeding ... each time the driver was given a ticket and allowed to go without searching the car

[fooman]

Good response. They squelched this descriiption.

Anyone sleeping in thier car with a killer around is supcious in my book. And I dont care if they were blue.

[bigunreal]

Exactly! Not to mention directing 90% of their resources into minor traffic violations, with a brownie point quota to meet every month. I'm very glad the snipers appear to have been caught, but the police really deserve no credit for apprehending them. It's a good thing the FBI intern that blew the sniper off previously wasn't manning the phones when the tipster contacted them.

[bigunreal]

Right on! Police worship in the U.S. is still rampant, despite the undeniable evidence of our own senses. These clowns had to be pointed towards the note tacked on a tree behind the Ponderosa by the sniper himself! Then, after the last shooting, they took six hours to find the note left behind at the scene. But most liberals and conservatives will fall all over themselves praising them for the great job they did in bringing these criminals to justice.

[1rudeboy]

It's not even that complicated. They claim that we live in a police state, but yet the police are totally ineffective. Get it?

[eno_]

Where is the contradiction? You seem to imply cops can't be incompentent and thuggish at the same time? We're getting both right now. Gun-grabbing, PC, over-credentialed, boobs that can't handle anything more challenging than writing a speeding ticket, while crime solution rates fall and police costs soar. You got any defense for the cops?

[eno_]

The bullet hole wasn't enough? Boobs.