Posted on 11/01/2002 6:06:06 PM PST by Shermy
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:01:32 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- Task force investigators late Friday linked yet another shooting to the D.C.-area sniper suspects -- this one 2 1/2 weeks before the fast-paced string of attacks began around the nation's capital.
Benny Oberoi, 22, an employee of a liquor store in Silver Spring, Maryland, was shot and wounded by a single bullet soon after he and his boss closed up the store Saturday, September 14. He is expected to make a full recovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
This victim was the Indian guy shot outside a liquor store. I remember a few stories about him pushing to the press that his shooting could be related. But timing his case had seemed anomalous.
The snipers got the car Sept. 11. This so far is the first hit. Then came the cross country run, with shootings seemingly robbery related. Then back to DC for the non-robbery related spree, though later a demand for $10 million was made.
Oberoi can be an indian last name. usually nonmuslim.
He had DC in his sights all the time, IMO, previous killings were dictated by events or practice. What set him off, tho, some msg over the summer?
Hope they can milk him for local/overseas supporters and nurturers. He's been in the jihadi world for a long time, perhaps before he even went over to araby for desert storm. Keep thinking his paths crossed with Ali Mhmd.
First Victim? - Cops Investigating Whether Sniper Spree Began at Md. Wine Store
Oct. 18 It was about 10:10 p.m. on Sept. 14, and Arnie Zelkovitz was closing up his Silver Spring, Md., beer and wine store for the night. Zelkovitz planned to take a few days off so he walked an employee, Bennie Oberoi, through the routine of closing up.
"I locked the door, looked in to check my alarm and then I started walking," Zelkovitz said. Oberoi, 22, stepped out into the night and was just a few paces ahead of his boss. Then he turned to wait.
"When I was about a step away from him we heard a shot," Zelkovitz said. Oberoi said it "sounded like a firecracker."
Oberoi didn't realize he'd been shot until he hit the ground. He said Zelkovitz told him he'd been shot and said, "Keep on talking to me."
"I started yelling, 'call 911, call 911,'" Zelkovitz said.
A Test Run?
Could this shooting have been the first attack of the sniper who has terrorized the Washington, D.C., area? Was it a test run to see how it really felt to put another person's life within his sights and pull the trigger?
Locking up the Hillandale Beer and Wine shop was just part of Zelkovitz's normal routine, so on the night of the shooting, he wasn't focused on what cars were in the parking lot or, perhaps more importantly, what cars were driving away.
"I am always aware," he said. "But, I'm always either looking down this way or I'm looking down that way."
As aware and cautious as Zelkovitz was, neither he nor Oberoi, nor any of the other people in the parking lot that night could identify who pulled the trigger or even where the shot came from.
Who Was That Guy?
When police arrived, Oberoi said they began to question him, asking 'Who was that guy? Tell us. Why did he shoot you?' Oberoi had no answers. He said he didn't know who had shot him.
Oberoi was shot for no apparent reason. No one saw the gunman, who vanished without a trace. The shooting barely drew notice in the local news. A three-sentence story on the incident was buried in a newspaper the next morning.
...snip...
This is what many of us have been posting since we found out about the Devil of Death from Islamakazi John Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam, the 5 Percenters, al Fuqra and just all around serial Islamakazi mass murderer. Authorities across the country are re-examining unsolved shooting cases and some believe a crisscross pattern of killings across the United States may be linked to the two men.
I would recommend that authorities go back about a decade to check out this Islamakazi Killing Machine, John Muhammed. Who know we could be looking at the all time top Islamakazi hit man!
Baton Rouge Man Gunned Down in Early Morning Shooting
Some similarities, but apparently up close and 19 shells found. The info is sketchy on this story, but it's being talked about. Also a Sept. 26 incident, but I can find no story possibly matching.
I will not be surprised if Malvo turns out to be the prime shooter. I have maintained from the first 2 days that a teenager was the shooter.
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington-area police said on Friday they had linked the two suspects in the recent sniper shootings to another strike in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, on Sept. 14 -- almost three weeks before the shooting spree started.
A 22-year-old man was shot in front of a liquor store in Silver Spring, the center of the rash of killings, survived the assault and is recuperating, police said in a statement.
"The task force has officially linked this shooting to the other sniper shootings in the area," the Montgomery County, Maryland, police department said in a statement.
This takes to 14 the number of sniper victims in the Washington area, including 10 killed and four wounded.
The two sniper suspects -- John Allen Muhammad, a 41-year-old Gulf war veteran(Muslim Convert), and John Lee Malvo, a 17-year-old Jamaican -- have also been charged for murders in Alabama and Louisiana.
Police are expanding their investigation to include other states after finding that the rifle used in the Washington-area sniper slayings was the same weapon used to kill a woman during a robbery at an Alabama liquor store on Sept. 21, Alabama authorities said on Friday.
Authorities also are searching for possible links to shootings in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Tennessee and Michigan.
Montgomery County, Maryland police spokesman Derek Baliles said the link was not based on ballistics but on "similarities of other circumstances," including witness information and the fact that the two suspects and their vehicle had been placed in the area on the day of the shooting.
'WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE THE LINK'
"Based on the similarities, the witness information that we've gotten and the evidence that confirms that the vehicle was here ... in the Washington area on the day of the shooting, we've been able to make the link," Baliles told Reuters.
The sniper shootings had previously been thought to have started in the Washington area on Oct. 2.
An earlier ballistics study done on bullet fragments from the shooting by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was inconclusive, Baliles said.
The finding could make it difficult for the police conclusively to link the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle found in the possession of Muhammad and Malvo to the Sept. 14 shooting.
Police Chief John Wilson of Montgomery, Alabama, said ballistics tests showed conclusively that the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle found in the possession of Muhammad and Malvo fired the bullet that killed Claudine Parker, 52, at an ABC Beverages outlet in Montgomery, Alabama.
The two suspects also have been charged with a murder in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sept. 23. Muhammad and Malvo face an array of murder charges in connection with a month-long, nationwide killing spree.
During the three-week shooting spree in the Washington area, the apparently random attacks cut down motorists at gasoline stations, shoppers outside stores and a 13-year-old outside his school, among other victims.
It would be nice if someone with the computer skills could post a map and show the trail of this killing spree. (Maybe something will 'pop' up.)
Has there been any more speculation about the 'training' camp in Marion, Alabama as it relates to this case?
Authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland have just announced a third possible suspect in the DC area sniper killings!
MKM
ROFLOL!
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