"No, that's not unusual," she said. "You have to understand we don't have the same computer system" that police in Maryland have. She said she had tried to run the tag the night of the shooting, but "the computer was down." This didn't make complete sense to me.
Even if the sniper database system was down for a day, query it the next. This investigation straddled weeks.
With only the tag number, she said, "We don't have probable cause" to arrest the owner. The tags could have been stolen; maybe someone else was driving the car that night. "The U.S. attorney won't issue a warrant for the arrest of the owner just based on a tag ID," she said. "We need an individual and someone to identify them, and you didn't see him."
Cripes, the cops were randomly pulling over white vans and searching them. Forget the tag, a resemblence to the suspect vehicle was sufficient. Also, the FBI was going to lawful owners of .223s and asking to test them. Probable cause had been tossed out the window for the sniper investigation.
She raised other problems. "Even if we find out the owner of the car," she said, "we're going to have to go up there and talk to him and get him to tell us who was driving the car that night, and then find them." If the assailant was Hispanic, she said, that would further hamper the case because the 4th District has only two Spanish-speaking detectives.
Turns out these perps were English speakers.
In the end, she summed up, an arrest would be difficult.On Tuesday, a man was shot and killed at Roosevelt High School in Northwest Washington. Police suspect the same Salvadoran gang, the Vatos Locos, that Lozado had told me might be responsible for my Sunday night shootings. Lozado said he would expedite the analysis of my shell casings -- but as of Friday morning, no detective had yet been assigned to my case.
Manpower was no issue on the sniper case.