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

[Luis S]

Brian,I think that means whoever finds him,law enforcement or otherwise,wouldn't be in too much trouble if they "accidentally" shot his sorry ass dead.

 

[RonR]

If I was in charge and one of my guys came up and said "Hey chief, I accidently shot him 4 times..." I'd buy him a round.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Couldn't the police tell the sniper's shooting position by the trajectory of the bullets? If the entry wound is at a downward angle it would suggest that the shooter was in an elevated position.

The angle alone wouldn't necessarily pinpoint the shooter's position, however. It gives you a track to follow, but the shot could have come from anywhere along that track. Besides, you'd need to know the position the person was in at the moment they were shot. Unless someone was looking directly at them, or they're on a security video somewhere, they probably won't be able to reconstruct this in the case of some of the fatal shootings. (Was the guy at the gas station standing straight up, leaning against his car, bending forward to rub out a mark on his paint job?)

Finally bullets that fragment or wander around inside the body can make it impossible to determine the angle of entry. A straight-line through-and-through wound from a jacketed, solid-point slug, where the bullet never strikes bone, will give an excellent track. A hollow point that mushrooms, fragments and hits damned near everything may not.

Regards,

Joe

 

[LDfan]

The police found the spot where he shot the kid the other day. Right beside the shell casing there was a Tarot card with "I am God" written on it. BTW the Tarot card was the death card. This is one sick person.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Oct9.html
Jeff

 

[Micheal]

The police found the spot where he shot the kid the other day. Right beside the shell casing there was a Tarot card with "I am God" written on it. BTW the Tarot card was the death card. This is one sick person.

I agree. I also don't think it's a terrorist like someone else had mentioned. There are a lot of sick people out there.

 

[eric holm]

Does anyone else think that the whole 'tarot card I am God' thing may have been left there for a purpose as opposed to by accident?

Maybe trying to mislead the profiling being done?

It just sounds a little manufactured to me.

 

[TonyD]

i think he will end up killing himself before he gets caught ,or i should say as he is being caught.

 

[Will K]

Spookily enough, a friend and I were discussing serial killers a few weeks ago. I made the comment that it's been a while since we had a prominent wacko and that somewhere out there, one was getting ready to snap...and sure enough.

I pray the police are able to nab this worthless assbasket before he does it again. Better yet, I hope they feed him one of his own bullets right between the eyes and save the tax payers a few bucks.

 

[MickeS]

Yeah, it seems like people were almost accepting it as one of those "well, it happens" things until the kid was shot. Child, adult, senior citizen, it doesn't matter: he's a psycho and must be stopped.
This whole thing reminds me of "Dirty Harry". I wish it was as easy catching a psycho in real life as it is in the movies. :frowning:
I wouldn't mind a Harry Callahan treatment of this guy when he gets caught...
/Mike

 

[Alex Prosak]

After hearing about the tarot card I think this has got to be Miss Cleo.

Sorry, this really isn't a joking matter but I couldn't pass that up.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

I'm sure the victim's family will find that amusing... I live ~ 15 miles from Bowie and my 8 yr old daughter is afraid to go to school. I'm sure she will find it comical also.



A blurb on the suspected terrorists recently captured in Oregon:

From Reuters

The five men and another man in jail on other charges, attracted attention in the small, quiet town of Washougal, Washington, on the Oregon boarder, by target shooting in a gravel pit.

The indictment also says they were engaged in "physical training" to ready themselves for a jihad, or holy war.

 

[Mike Lenthol]

So what sort of shell case was it?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Does anyone else think that the whole 'tarot card I am God' thing may have been left there for a purpose as opposed to by accident?

Er, given that it was addressed "Dear Policeman", I'd say this is a pretty safe bet.
So now he has a new name, "The Tarot Killer" instead of "The Beltway Sniper" I suppose he had to come up with something since "The Zodiac" was already taken. Just another of life's losers, looking for attention in the worst way possible. I'm more convinced than ever that this guy isn't ex-military or ex-police, more like a police or military wannabe. (Although there is a small chance that he applied to one or both, and was either rejected or washed out in training or during probation. More likely he never got that far, but always wanted to.)
Somebody's finally going to realize that their slightly creepy neighbor might be seriously creepy and drop a dime on him, or he's going to make some stupid mistake (either by insinuating himself into the investigation or by getting a parking ticket a la David Berkowitz) that will bring him to the attention of the police. After that they'll probably find enough evidence to link him to the crimes. He might try to go out in a blaze of glory by shooting it out with the cops (if he's arrested under circumstances that makes that possible), but I can easily see him meekly surrendering once they've got the goods on him, maybe even confessing so that he gets the rest of his fifteen minutes.
Regards,
Joe

 

[Armando Zamora]

Yeah, it seems like people were almost accepting it as one of those "well, it happens" things until the kid was shot.

Mike,

With all due respect, I assure you, that was not the case. Last Thursday, the incidents happened in such a relatively short time span that it caught everyone, law enforcement and civilians alike off-guard. Believe me, once it was determined that the shootings were related, immediate action was taken by public and private school systems to protect our children. You had to be here to feel what this community was experiencing.

One of the fallen victims was shot no more than 1/3 of a mile from my office and across the street from one of our other office locations in Rockville, MD. Just to give you an idea of the impact that this scum-of-the-earth's actions had on the community that day...Rockville Pike, which is always bumper-to-bumper traffic and busy with pedestrians during lunch time (11:00a - 2:00p), was like a ghost town.

 

[RonR]

Any other information on some lady they took in for questioning? She was driving around the area where the tarot card was found...

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

With all due respect, I assure you, that was not the case. Last Thursday, the incidents happened in such a relatively short time span that it caught everyone, law enforcement and civilians alike off-guard. Believe me, once it was determined that the shootings were related, immediate action was taken by public and private school systems to protect our children.

Exactly. This thing was wall-to-wall national news beginning with the flurry of shootings Thursday morning. It is unquestionably a scary thing - but realistically the odds of being shot by this guy have got to be a lot less than those of being hit by an errant bus or a drunk driver. Around those of getting a building dropped on you by a terrorist or receiving anthrax in the mail. The only way to deal with something like this rationally is to live our lives the way we always have. We can't stay in our houses forever, and our chances of coming face to face with death or horror haven't, in fact, measurably worsened, either since September 11th or since this nut-job started shooting people. From what I've heard the traffic on the Beltway and some of the other major roads in the area is as horrendous as ever. I take that as a good sign.

Haven't seen any further information on the news in the past few hours. The shell casing recovered along with the Tarot card near the school as a .223, same as the bullets used in at least some of the previous shootings. A shooting at a gas station near Fredricksburg is being investigated and may be connected to the sniper attacks. (One of the scary things is that the publicity may draw copycats out of the woodwork - either similar derranged losers or people with a particular target in mind who see a chance to commit a murder that could be mistaken for another in the series. If I were going through a bad divorce in Maryland, D.C. or northern Virginia, I'd be very nervous right now.) Maryland police are talking to a guy who had a large cache of weapons in his house and who was reported by his mother for shooting a gun in or near the place. He isn't under arrest, and they're trying to get an order for a psychological evaluation. Police sources say they have already talked to this individual in the course of the sniper investigation, but that he is not under arrest and they aren't releasing any further information. Haven't seen anything about the woman mentioned above, and I must have missed the previous reports, because this thread is the first I've heard of her.

Regards,

Joe

 

[CharlesD]

Joseph,

A witness reported a man carrying a long narrow bag near a wooded area. The police investigated and apparently questioned a woman driving nearby. Subsequent news/wire reports that I have read all mention surveying crews having been in the area in recent days, and that those crews carry tripods in "long narrow bags". So it appears as if this was a false alarm, although I am not aware of any police statement about this incident one way or the other.

We are caught between Nihilism and Solipsism.

 

[GordonL]

Another shooting in Manassas last night. Not confirmed as to whether or not it's the same sniper but it sure looks that way. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Oct9.html

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Ballistics now confirm that the Manassas shooting is connected to the recent string of sniper attacks. No other updates.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Bob Graz]

My son's high school just cancelled the freshman trip to DC. This is the annual trip that the kids make to support what they are learning in their American History class.
It's a pretty sad and tragic situation. Hopefully this will come to a quick end without the additional loss of life.