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This Is A Bit Scary... (DC Sniper merged thread) (1 Viewer)

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Eric Kahn

there is a system that can locate precisly where a shot has been fired from using microphones, we used it to locate snipers in bosnia (Sariavo??) with great sucess, it is being tested in 2 cities in the US from what I have heard, just wish right now that DC was one of them
 

Joseph DeMartino

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there is a system that can locate precisly where a shot has been fired from using microphones, we used it to locate snipers in bosnia
Unfortunately, this only works to locate a sniper who is still shooting, and for whom you already have a rough location. (The system is either brought to a location which is taking sniper fire, or is set up in the vicinity of the kind of high-value target that is likely to attract snipers.) You'd have to have one of these things on every street corner in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. in order to get a location on this guy. We don't have that many of them, nor the manpower to deploy them if we did. We have metal detectors and x-ray machines that might also pick this guy up - we're not using them for the same reason. :)
Regards,
Joe
 

CharlesD

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Another shooting near a gas station in Va. this morning. Police are stopping cars on a nearby freeway. Apparently some of the previous attacks have occured near highways which police speculate that the shooter is using to get out of the area quickly following an attack. With any luck they'll get him today or at least force him to change tactics and maybe make a mistake...
 

Matthew Furtek

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The psychological impacts of this are insane. Next time I go get gas I'm going to be crouching down and pay at the pump, despite the fact that the odds are low it will be me, just because I live 100 miles away from the shooting means the odds go up significantly.

I don't think this person (or persons) is going to stop until he / they are caught, and if he does get cornered or chased, he is going to take out as many people as he can.

I just hope that this white van business is legit. Seeing some of the sights on the news (armed police with bulletproof vests) are phenomenal. I just hope they are also block I-64 too.

Really a sick sick person.

Matthew Furtek
 

Peter Kim

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The psychological impacts of this are insane.
I can only guess and don't even want to begin to imagine. Life is tough enough without having something like this bear down on you. Stay safe.

Despite the mantra of not letting a monster affect your life, you have no choice other than to ratchet up the caution.
 

RonR

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I'm wondering if he honestly didn't see the trooper there. I mean in his/their sick mind this would have been a way to rachet things up even another notch. Maybe his MO is just targeting Joe Blow on the corner?
 

Joseph DeMartino

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I'm wondering if he honestly didn't see the trooper there.
Or he knew, based on where the trooper was and his own location (1 1/2 to 2 football field lengths away) that there was no danger that the trooper could react in time to catch him. If this guy was firing from inside a vehicle (which he doesn't seem to have done in one shooting, but may have done in the others) and someone else was at the wheel, they could have been in motion before the sound of the shot reached the gas station. The entrance to my housing development is about 150 to 200 yards from a shopping center. Because of the way the roads and entrances are laid out, and the heavy traffic at rush hour, someone exiting my neighborhood could shoot somebody talking to a cop in that shopping center and be halfway to the Turnpike before the cop got out of the parking lot, much less made the u-turn necessary to initiate a pursuit. And a shooter would have a number of alternate routes to choose from once he was out of sight of the shopping center, while the cops were busy shutting down the Turnpike. Scary thoughts indeed.
Contrary to some of the speculation on the news, I don't think this guy necessarily has any special training. All that is required to do what he's doing is practice with a rifle, an intimate knowledge of the area and extremely careful advanced planning. Since he is picking the time and place of each shooting, is going after essentially stationary targets (people pumping gas or loading stuff into a vehicle) and is staking out "target rich environments" he has everyone reacting to what he does. That immediately puts all the witnesses and law enforcement at a disadvantage. He just has to stake out an area and wait for a favorable set of circumstances - a clear shot, a good target, no witnesses in his immediate vicinity, planned escape route clear. Until those elements are all there, he's just a guy in a van or whatever, and nobody but him knows that they're in what is about to become a crime scene. So nobody's on alert, nobody's paying attention to him. If it is a non-descript vehicle (deliver or "working" van, for instance), it is - for all practical purposes - invisible until the shot has been fired. Even then if the sound of the shot is not immediately identifiable, nobody close to the vehicle may understand what has happened - especially if the victim is so far away that nobody without a scope can see him/her drop from the point of origin for the shot, and nobody near the victim can easily see the van.
Regards,
Joe
 

Jeremy Illingworth

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I can easily see him meekly surrendering once they've got the goods on him, maybe even confessing
That's what most serial killers do.

Unfortunately most serial killers can't stop themselves and keep going until they are caught, usually as a result of thinking themselves smarter than the authorities. Juding by the fact that he left and card and I assume the shell casings were left intentionally, he's already there. It is highly doubtful that he will switch to a different weapon. He'll almost certainly be caught, but when?

jeremy
 

John Geelan

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The attacks on Gas Pumps reminds me of that Steve Martin movie where a wacko starts shooting at a gas station. Steve Martin remarks "He doesn't like the cans".

What is this nuts problem with people who pump gas?

I'm sure he/she/they will be caught soon. There is just too much Law Enforcement on this case now.
 

ThomasC

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What is this nuts problem with people who pump gas?
they're (one of) the easiest targets because they're usually alone (at least out of the car) and they usually stand relatively still, so the sniper can focus on the target. same thing with people loading groceries into the car, there really isn't much distance between the cart and the car.
 

Matthew Furtek

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I just had a crazy thought. Stuff like this wouldn't happen if we had high-res spook satelites watching everything. I'm talking about the stuff that can be zoomed in to 3 ft resolution.

Matthew Furtek
 

Chris Knox

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Which is exactly why I described a situation in which the muzzle wouldn't be sticking out of the vehicle. That was sorta the point.
Uhh Joe,

I don't know how much experience you have firing a .223 round from any firearm (or any round for that matter), but if he's firing rounds inside of a vehicle he'll be easy to find. He's completely deaf by now and his side windows are blown out all over the street. The kind of sound pressure leaving the front of a barrel of a rifle is nearly immeasurable. A .223 round is overloaded with powder. Jam all of that sound in a box and you're talking severe ear damage as well as vision damage.

Now, I haven't heard about the distances that he is apparently shooting from, but if you guys are right, that some of the targets are over 700 yards away, then I guarantee you that he is military of some kind. Being proficient with a rifle at that range is an astounding skill and there aren't many (if any) civilian ranges that extend beyond 200 yards. You can probably count the number of marksmen that can make consistent shots like that "one shot, one kill" at a time on your hands. At 200 yards your heartbeat alone can throw you off a target the size of a melon. Factor in your breathing and muscle control and you are talking one professional individual. At 700 yards he would have to literally "arc" (trajectory)the rifle several feet over his target and the bullet would hit the target on the way down (bullet drop). Most rifles are sighted in below 200 yards. A .223 round is said to be accurate at a thousand yards, but I disagree with the last quarter of that distance unless this guy is very intimate with his gun and loads his own ammunition. The wound would resemble a shot from above even if the shooter and target were at the same level.

OTOH, I doubt he is "world class" simply because of his choice of round and weapon. I don't think you could find a true sniper that would use an AR-15 or M-16. Despite their popularity in law enforcement and their use in the military. these firearms are not the choice of snipers. They are not accurate weapons and are nearly unreliable for long range shooting. Ask any combat veteran that has had his hands on an M-16 if he thinks it's the choice of guns in a sniping position, or a relyable weapon at all. I have an AR-15, and although I love it, I wouldn't rely on it for hitting targets over 300 yards CONSISTENTLY.

It is my opinion that the only thing that he is doing incorrectly (aside from taking human life) is that he isn't using a silenced rifle, which would make him undetectable, and if he stopped leaving tarot cards and trying to taunt authorities then he would be unstoppable. I think leaving the tarot card could be a marker to determine the time it would take from when he committed the crime to when they identify his shooting position. It is a useful tool in a game of cat and mouse.

However, if the tarot card was left to indicate to officers that he IS god, then his state of mind will clearly be his undoing...

So, I'm going to dismiss the 700-plus yards shooting for now (I can't believe he is that accurate) and just go with my gut. The guy is obviously using a .223 round and more than likely using an AR. It is my opinion that he is a civilian having no formal sniper training and is simply a wannabe with reasonably accurate "range" skills. The tarot card is disconcerting, but nothing much else. Clearly he is not God, because God wouldn't use an AR-15 or any .223 round. God would use a manual bolt action rifle (.30 or better) and it would be a silenced, sub-sonic round. (if they can be made sub-sonic at that range and still be accurate).

Another idea behind the weapon is that the government uses the lower assembly of the rifle to identify the weapon. The upper (area including the barrel) is easily replaceable and renders all the data collected by ballistics workers obsolete, as once the upper assembly is swapped out, the gun is untraceable to the fragments located and tested. This is a serious flaw of the identification process of this rifle because it is the barrel that marks the bullet using the rifling. It would only make sense that you also use that part of the assembly to identify the gun, wouldn't it?

I'd say the shooter is a young man, no older than 35, likely younger than 25, may have an accomplice (female?). White, because the randomness of the race of victims seems desperately random as if he is intentionally and actively not targeting a certain race, going out of his way in varying his targets, mixing up race in order to hide his own. Obviously a local of the area and lives somewhere in the middle of all of locations of the shotings. He will not stop until he is stopped, and if he isn't turned in by a family member, then someone will see the shooting in action and either eliminate him themselves or bring about his capture. He's probably taking Prozac or some other SSRI and has been prescribed Haldol to boot. If he's younger than 20 then he comes from a well to do middle-class or better family and of course the parents haven't a clue that young Scooter Jr. was even out of his room.

Welcome to the new milineum, can I take your coat for you?

Just an opinion...

Chris
 

Inspector Hammer!

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I just read a whole slew of articles and news bites about this nut on my homepage and all the experts agree that this guy's brazenness will probably be his downfall. If he keeps getting more and more cocky, they will get him sooner or later, I just hope it's sooner.
This is really making me paranoid to be outside folks. I live in Wilmington De. but I have no idea where this jerk will strike next! What's even worse is, I don't drive, I take the bus and a guy standing at a bus stop is like a Thanksgiving day turkey ripe for the plucking. I'm not taking the bus until he's found, until that time, i'll bum rides from friends.
The articles mentioned things that you can do to avoid being a victim, like walk briskly and in irregular patterns, stick to dimly lit or dark area's and stay out of wide open spaces. If you are shot at, run in a zigzag pattern taking cover behind solid objects such as pillars or inside buildings. If your at a gas station, neil down to lower your profile even though it may seem silly, and if your shot at, position yourself behind the front wheel with the engine block in front of you.
None of this is of any comfort to me however. :frowning:
 

Andrew_Sch

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My dad and I are headed right down into his territory this morning to pick up a motorcycle. We've deliberately planned the trip so we don't stop at any gas stations in northern VA or southern MD.
 

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