Another shooting. This one at 6:00 am this morning back at the same place the first shootings occurred.
Looks like we can just about rule out terrorism. This guy nailed a three page letter on a tree near the Ponderosa restaurant with demands. He also threatened schools and demanded money in the letter. Hence, obviously related to the school closures in the Richmond area yesterday and today. Heres an article about this morning's shooting. ---------------------------- Man Shot in Montgomery County, Md. Foxnews.com Tuesday, October 22, 2002 ROCKVILLE, Md. — A man was shot and wounded in the Aspen Hill area of Montgomery County, Md., Tuesday morning, local emergency officials have confirmed. The victim suffered a chest wound and was being airlifted via helicopter to a local trauma center, Montgomery County Fire Department spokesman Pete Piringer said. There was no word on the victim's condition. Capt. Nancy Demme of the Montgomery County police told reporters at 8:30 a.m. that the man was about 40 years old and was shot while standing on the top steps of a Ride-On commuter bus that had stopped on a layover to fill out some paperwork. Demme said the shooting took place at the intersection of Graham Tree Road and Connecticut Avenue, across the road from North Gate Park and just minutes from the border with Washington, D.C. There is no word yet if the shooting has any connection to the Beltway Sniper. Tuesday's shooting occurred near the sites of six confirmed attacks. The first report of the shooting came into 911 at about 6 a.m. EDT, said Rob Sauerhoff, a 911 supervisor for Montgomery County Police. Police put a widespread dragnet into place immediately after the shooting, clogging traffic on Connecticut Avenue, one of the main arteries into Washington, D.C., just as the morning commute began. Police helicopters began flying over the scene. Demme added later that I-495, the Beltway, had been shut down in Montgomery County. Some reports said police were looking for two separate vehicles. On Monday, the hunt for the Washington-area sniper turned into a case of high-stakes phone tag. Police say they received a call about the shooting after the latest attack -- but the call was muddled. Investigators took to the airwaves and pleaded with him to call them. "The person you called could not hear everything you said. The audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand," said Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who has been leading the hunt for the sniper who has killed nine and wounded three since Oct. 2. Various news reports said that the person who wrote the note found at Saturday's shooting scene telephoned police twice, once to alert them to the note's existence and once after police responded to it. Some reports indicated that the caller had disguised his voice, spoke with a heavy foreign accent and at one point repeated the words "I am God" originally found on a tarot card left near where a 13-year-old was shot in Bowie, Md. Moose's plea came hours after Virginia authorities surrounded a white van parked near an Exxon gas station just outside Richmond, Va., and seized two men. They said later the two were illegal immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala and were unconnected to the sniper. With a Saturday night shooting at a Ponderosa steak restaurant in Ashland, some 15 miles from Richmond, now linked to the sniper, school officials in the Richmond area closed schools Tuesday for a second day. Henrico County, Va., superintendent Mark Edwards said police information and parental concerns played equal roles in the decision. Moose did not disclose who received the muddled phone call that riveted authorities' attention, when it was made or other details. Investigators believe the call may have come from the sniper and that the caller was the same person who left a note and phone number Saturday night at the scene of the latest shooting, a law enforcement source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. On Sunday, Moose publicly pleaded with the note writer to call authorities. Then in the first of two televised statements Monday, the chief said: "The message that needs to be delivered is that we are going to respond to a message that we have received. We are preparing our response at this time." Separate news reports Tuesday shed more light on the message. The Los Angeles Times and Richmond Times-Dispatch said it contained a threat directed toward schools, which may have led authorities to cancel classes in the Richmond area. Several media outlets, including the New York Post, reported that the killer demanded money. The Post said the message took the form of a letter attached to a tree behind the Ponderosa steakhouse. The Los Angeles Times also reported Tuesday that unidentified federal agents said the letter was "very lengthy" and poorly worded, bordering on broken English. The latest attack came Saturday night in a steakhouse parking lot in Ashland. The victim, a 37-year-old man, was felled by a single shot to the stomach. He remained in critical but stable condition at a Richmond hospital Tuesday after doctors removed his spleen and parts of his pancreas and stomach. Surgeons retrieved the bullet after a second round of surgery Sunday, and ballistics tests linked the slug to the ambush killer. The drama and arrests in suburban Richmond on Monday heightened anxieties in an area already tense since the sniper expanded his geographic reach farther from the Washington suburbs. Witnesses said officers in bulletproof vests converged on the van and dragged out a man before slapping him in handcuffs. Authorities did not say how the second man was arrested. Hours later, the lead fell apart. A Justice Department official said deportation proceedings had begun against the 24-year-old Mexican and 35-year-old Guatemalan. Several newspapers reported Tuesday that the men apparently made the mistake of driving the white van up to a phone booth being watched by police. The phone booth had been traced to one that the letter writer had used. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the person who left the note at the steak house included the number of the Richmond pay phone and wrote he would call someone in law enforcement there. Amid the day's chaos, the sniper's latest fatal victim was laid to rest. FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, was killed Oct. 14 outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va., while loading packages with her husband. Franklin had survived breast cancer and was awaiting the birth of her first grandson. "Whoever this perpetrator is has surrendered himself to darkness and evil," minister Larry Tingle told about 200 mourners at Mount Olivet United Methodist Church in Arlington, Va. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The whole district just seized up. My understanding is they shut down the beltway and all the major arteries to catch this guy. I am the only one at work today so far because I jog in. This nut is running the show right now.
Scary. I have a feeling he won't have his day in court as the authorities might kill him on sight. He deserves it. Is MSNBC America's Channel or what? After almost an hour, they haven't reported that the bus driver this morning has died in the hospital from his wounds.
I heard on MSNBC yesterday that Interpol was saying that a sniper from the French military had gone missing and that a previous note left by the sniper was in French. I can't find that in writing anywhere though.
note was supposedly written in broken english and threatened the school district if they didn't give him money. Could be a frenchman. That is possible.
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-22-0012.html French army marksman missing in U.S. By AP PARIS -- France has alerted Interpol about a French army deserter - known as a top marksman - who is missing in North America, feeding speculation of a link to the investigation into the Washington-area sniper shootings. The 25-year-old second lieutenant did not return to class in September at the elite military school, Saint-Cyr Coetquidan in Brittany, in western France, after going on vacation in August, officials said yesterday. Interpol was notified of the disappearance of the officer, a normal procedure, and a judicial investigation was opened, which is also routine, said Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau. Bureau acknowledged there was some speculation of a connection with the sniper investigation, but he said that was just hypothetical at this point. "We have no certitude of a link," he said in a telephone interview. However, he said, "This soldier has a very, very good reputation as a marksman." And since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S., "these are things we follow very closely," he added. Gen. Bruno Cuche, head of the Saint-Cyr Coetquidan sniper school, said the missing officer hadn't given rise to any suspicions during his training. "The concern that others may have (about a possible link to the sniper), I share with them, but I don't know of anything that casts suspicion on this individual," he told France-2 television. Cuche conceded he was "worried about the dramatic disappearance of this officer-student." Interpol, the international police agency based in the French city of Lyon, said it refuses to comment on active cases. The deserter, not identified by name, was given permission for an August trip to Canada and the United States, said Bureau. Police sources said he had planned a trip to Chicago. RTL radio reported the deserter was of Yugoslav origin, but Bureau could not confirm that, saying only that he had to be a French citizen to attend the military school.
I'm kinda surprised noone has posted about what the note said... Your children are not safe Sniper: 'Your children are not safe' Sources: Note contained timeline for more attacks Tuesday, October 22, 2002 Posted: 5:00 PM EDT (2100 GMT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SILVER SPRING, Maryland (CNN) -- A post-script to a message believed left by the sniper after Saturday's shooting warned: "Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time," the lead investigator of the case said Tuesday. Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose also told reporters that authorities had received another "communication" and that they "will be responding soon." Moose said he was revealing the threat against children because it had the topic of much speculation and erroneous reporting. He said law enforcement officials were aware of the warning and were taking it into consideration when making safety decisions. The brief news conference came hours after a bus driver was shot to death in Montgomery County, Maryland. Moose did not say whether that killing was connected to the attacks that have left nine dead and three wounded in the Washington area. Police said the driver was standing on the top step platform of a commuter bus when he was shot in the chest. The bus was sitting in a staging area where buses begin or end their routes. The driver was taken to a trauma center in Bethesda, where he died. Authorities identified the victim as Conrad Johnson, 35, a married father of two and a 10-year employee of the county's Ride On bus service. "He loved basketball, he loved his kids -- very large extended family. And he's going to be missed greatly," said Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan. Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said police had not received any descriptions of vehicles or suspects from Tuesday's shooting. He urged citizens to remain vigilant. "We remain concerned about the safety of all the people in our region," Moose said. "We realize that the person or the people involved in this have shown a clear willingness and ability to kill people of all ages, all races, all genders, all professions, [at] different times, different days, different locations." Bus rider Nicole Collins believes she came close to being a victim of the sniper. "I usually get on that bus," she said. "God was with me today. That could have been me -- just dead." The shooting was reported at 5:56 a.m. EDT in the Aspen Hill neighborhood of Silver Spring, an area close to the scenes of several of the previous sniper attacks. Police in cars and helicopters converged on the shooting scene, which is near a basketball court surrounded by woods. Major roadways in and around the Washington metro area were blocked as police hunted for clues. Bloodhounds were being used to comb the woods near the scene. (Gallery) The shooting prompted officials to order all Montgomery County schools to operate under Code Blue, said Brian Porter, director of communications for the schools. Under Code Blue, all exterior doors are locked, all entrances and exits are monitored and all staff maintain a higher level of vigilance than usual, said Porter. The first six sniper shootings took place in Montgomery County. No one was injured in the first, when a window was shot out at a Michaels craft store in Aspen Hill on October 2. Five people were subsequently killed in the county October 2 and 3. Meanwhile, law enforcement sources said a hand-written note found near the scene of Saturday's sniper shooting in Virginia "hinted at a demand for money" and threatened "more killing." One official said it contained a timeline for authorities to act, and if they failed, then there would be more attacks. CNN initially withheld that information at the request of law enforcement officials, who feared that releasing it could jeopardize the investigation and put the community at risk. However, after several other news organizations reported the information, the officials said they had no objection to CNN reporting it. The note is undergoing analysis at an FBI lab for DNA, handwriting and other details that might help determine who wrote it. Sources said authorities were working under the assumption that it is from the sniper. The discovery of the note behind the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, prompted Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose on Sunday to make his first plea to the sniper to contact authorities. (Account of response to note) Investigators believe the sniper called authorities Monday morning using a voice-disguising device, a source close to the investigation told CNN. It was that phone call, this source said, that prompted Moose to urge the possible sniper to "call us back." "The person you called could not hear everything that you said. The audio was unclear, and we want to get it right," Moose said at a Monday news conference. (Full story)
God bless the families of these victims...what an awful loss of life. This man in particular leaves behind two kids to grow up with no daddy. That sucks! Now the guy specifically threatens children...I sincerely dislike this jackass.
For the first time in my life, I am willing to suspend the Eighth Amendment for this guy. I want his punishment to be as painful as possible. In fact...I'd like to volunteer to carry out his sentence.
It's so crazy that this could occur in any one of our cities. I was thinking ex-CIA... but french commando should be easier to catch. If the police mention 'guy w/ french accent'... they'll have tabs on the whereabouts of every non-native in the area.
Then he leaves another note, this time saying he'll have to kill some more people because the tip line kept hanging up on him. And now he wants 10 million wired to an account. God damn sicko.
Could it be an inside job? Hey, anything's possible at this juncture. I mean, who would expect an authority to be behind this?
Question: Seeing as these killings have taken place in more than one state, why are local authorities still (apparantly) in charge of the investigation?
This could be a current cop. Forget about ex-cop, every ex-cop would have been investigated at this point.
How could he give an account to wire the money to and not have it tracked back to him? Seems like there may be a way to nab him there. I also read this guy was trying to get through to authorities and he kept getting hung up on and cut off...like 7 different times. He then said 5 people will have to die because of that debacle. I hate to give in to his demand...but how many more people have to die while the police have their heads up their collective asses with nothing to go on? I say you call in the national guard or something and surround the whole f-ing place. Then, you go on a massive search and hunt mission at every location. Don't offer him a way to escape. Sure, it would be a massive clusterf*ck but so is everything else their doing when a shooting occurs, e.g. shutting down freeways and making traffic crawl. If he likes the woods so much, then secretly surround the wooded locations and have undercover people at every wooded location ready to implement the quarantine. Hell...I dunno. SOMEBODY F*CKING STOP THIS. AND SOMEBODY GET RID OF THAT STUPID COP AND HIS PRESS CONFERENCES WHERE HE TALKS IN TONGUE AND DOESN'T ANSWER QUESTIONS! LET THE FBI TAKE OVER! BRING IN THE CIA! SURROUND THE DAMN STATE! DO IT ALL! WHATEVER IT TAKES! STOP THE F-ING MADNESS!
