Posted on 10/29/2002 5:47:57 AM PST by Lorenb420
VANCOUVER -- A man suspected of being the Washington, D.C., sniper asked if anyone in the large Vancouver-area Sikh population could fashion a gun silencer for a high-powered rifle out of a metal rod, says a man who befriended him.
"He was familiar with Surrey and knew there was a large Punjabi population," said Harjeet Singh, a Bellingham, Wash., man who befriended John Allen Muhammad in February 2002.
"He wanted to know if I knew somebody who owned a metal machine shop who could grind down the silencer for him."
The RCMP confirmed yesterday they have now opened a file on Muhammad.
Staff-Sgt. Rocky Rockwell, RCMP immigration and passport section chief, said the FBI called the RCMP and asked for information relating to Muhammad.
"The FBI is interested in collating information with the RCMP," Rockwell said.
"The RCMP have generated an investigation to collate information coming in which may relate to the fact that Muhammad may or may not have come to Canada."
Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, now face murder charges in both Virginia and Maryland in the three-week series of attacks that killed 10 people and wounded three.
Jerry Page, a manager at the Light House Mission in Bellingham, said Muhammad told him he was headed for Vancouver to help renovate a home for a friend about eight months before the shooting rampage.
Muhammad lived at the mission on and off between August 2001 and Jan. 27 of this year.
Singh, who has family in Vancouver, said in an interview with the Vancouver Province that four months before the shooting rampage he told the Whatcom County police and the FBI in Bellingham that Muhammad had talked about blowing up a loaded fuel tanker truck on a U.S. freeway. But, he said, "I don't think they believed me."
I don't think a silencer is going to do much to quiet a .223 bullet traveling five times the speed of sound.
And just in the nick of time, too!
Actually, I thought at first that the headline read "RCMP open fire on sniper suspect"!
I believe what the silencer will do is make the location of the shooter less apparant. the only thing the target area hears is the sonic boom of the bullet. From what I understand, generally people are about 90 degrees off in picking the origin of the shot when silencers are used.
Singh, who has family in Vancouver, said in an interview with the Vancouver Province that four months before the shooting rampage he told the Whatcom County police and the FBI in Bellingham that Muhammad had talked about blowing up a loaded fuel tanker truck on a U.S. freeway. But, he said, "I don't think they believed me."
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