"The Sniper"

This sounds like it might be the guy. With all the talk about phone calls, the van was rushed by officers at a phone booth.

Here's the photo and the Wash. Post Story:



washingtonpost.com
Police Issue Cryptic Message to Sniper
Statement Issued as Van Driver Is Taken Into Custody Near Richmond

By R.H. Melton and Michael Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 21, 2002; 11:02 AM


Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose appeared before reporters in Rockville this morning to offer a quick, cryptic statement that appeared to be designed for the sniper who has terrorized Washington, even as a large police contingent in suburban Richmond took a man into custody and confiscated a white Plymouth Voyager minivan.

It was unclear what prompted the events outside Richmond or if the man had anything to do with the investigation into the string of sniper shootings. But Lt. Doug Goodman of the Hanover County Sheriff's Department confirmed that police had seized the van and that "it was specific enough to be a suspect in all the cases." He wouldn't confirm that an arrest had been made, but an officer and a witness on the scene said a man had been taken from the van.

Moose took no questions and gave no explanation for his remarks.

"We are going to respond to a message that we have received," he said. "We will respond later. We are preparing that response at this time."

Moose had surprised reporters last night with an announcement that police had received a message at the scene of the latest shooting in Hanover County, near Richmond. Sources later said that authorities believe that the message came from the sniper.

If so, it would mark his second known communication with police since the string of shootings began Oct. 2. Prince George's County police found a tarot card with the message "Mister Policeman, I am God," near the scene of an Oct. 7 shooting at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie. That shooting critically injured a 13-year-old boy.

The police action in Richmond occurred at an Exxon gas station where the van had parked next to a public telephone.

Officers and investigators swarmed the area, just west of the Richmond city line in Henrico County, where officers with assault-style rifles stood watch as the van was hauled away.

The minivan was positioned so that the payphone could be reached from the driver's seat and had temporary license plates.

Keith Underwood, who works at the Royal Oldsmobile next door to the Exxon station, said that he and other employees had noticed police cruisers in the area shortly after 8 a.m., and had seen plainclothes police officers with compact binoculars nearby as the van sat in the gas station parking lot.

Suddenly officers approached the van, Underwood said, and pulled the man out.

The police, Underwood said, "were 100 percent organized and quick. They came from everywhere."

 

I hope it is the man, and before he can go to trial, someone snipes him to save the tax payers some money.

DD

 

I'll drink to that.

 

not until we find out his motivation

 

Give him a little sodium penothol...question him vigorously...then shoot him right in the cranium.

 

If this is the guy (or guys), my best estimate is 3 weeks for a book to appear in the supermarkets, 5 weeks for a "Dateline Special" or some such thing, and 5 months for a TV movie. We're going to be living with this for a long time regardless of what happens to the perp.

 

My current theory is that this is a guy who worked some kind of construction all over the DC/Richmond area (and is thus familiar with the roads, etc.) and shot people close to where he was working. If he lives in the Richmond area, that would explain why there were no weekend attacks until the latest one, close to his home.

 

I'm getting a feeling it isn't the right ones....

 

If you're saying you think the police picked up people who are not the snipers, I agree. It all seems too easy.

 

The driver of the van was a Mexican National, and is being questioned.

I think it may be a case of mistaken identity. There was no gun found in the van.

This guy could have just been waiting for a call at the payphone that the Sniper used the night before to give a tip about the note in the woods.

DD

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/South/10/21/sniper.shootings/index.html

 

I don't know. I read that someone called the tipline after the Ponderosa shooting on Saturday, and gave the police a tip that they can find a note in the woods behind the restaurant. Obviously, it was the killer or someone working with him who made the call. They traced the call to the same general location in Richmond where they took the two men in custody this morning. Just seems like kind of a coincidence that a man driving a white van pulls right up to a telephone booth that police are monitoring because they believe the sniper may have called from that same location on Saturday. But, it could be just that: a coincidence. The man in the van was a 24 year old native of Mexico.

 

white van though.....seems like one hell of a coincidence. I wonder if someone is playing the police. I don't know about DC, but there are plenty of places around Houston where I can hire "Mexican Nationals" at very competitive wages to do all sorts of things. I'm sure any one of them would be happy to "wait for a phone call" in the relative comfort of a brand new minivan.

Then again, I have vivid imagination.

 

From www.cnn.com

BREAKING NEWS Authorities have found no evidence connecting two men who were taken into custody today near Richmond, Virginia, to the sniper attacks, sources told CNN. Details soon

 

Did Chief Moose's (Meese?) meessage to the sniper just now read like he was gettin instructions from a bad cop movie?

Ok what we need to do is stall him while we investigate more...Let's tell him we are having trouble getting the million dollars together...No, no, no...Let's tell him we only want to talk with him....No, no...I've got it! Let's tell him we could not understand the message and to resend it. And then when he does we will be ready with a tracer and we can got pick him hup!

Goodness gracious. With today's technologies we are expected to believe that they could not decipher a message because it was not audible? A good audio man can distinguish the type of pick used on a guitar from a sh!tty 1950's audio feed recorded with a friggin' snoopy tape recorder. There is no way in hell I could be forced to believe that they just delivered the truth. And I am no conspiracy theorist.

Chance

 

Hook, line and sinker! Doh! And to think I almost called you a troll in my reply but decided not to so as not to insult your (potentially) "sacred" belief!

As for my opinion on the sniper: I think he's a nutcase. If people were being killed in multiple cities simultaneously or even if two people got hit at the same time in the same city, then I'd believe it was terrorists.

Why do you think they hit both towers and the Pentagon? To leave no doubt that it was terrorists and not an accident (even if no one claimed responsibility). If it really were terrorists, I think they would find a way to let the world know that the U.S. was "paying a price" for our support of whoever or the U.S.' oppression of (insert downtrodden du jour group here).

 

I don't think it takes a very vivid imagination to come up with a theory like this. Some of those who were arrested in the fake drug cases in Dallas were ensnared in a very similar way to what you've described.

 

2 guys being deported to Latin america. We are tuff on immigration in DC. We'll bring you down with a SWAT team

 

I want to be sure it is the RIGHT person 1st
THEN . . . I hope 1. it is a head shot and 2. he's a donor

Rocket River

 

Thanks Castor! I hadn't seen that link earlier.