Lessons from the DC Killers

[Dune]

Their longest shot was roughly 30 yards.  I refuse to call them snipers.

From The Washington Times

Concrete lesson of the snipers

By James Bovard

    Former Montgomery County, Md., police chief Charles Moose's book on last year's sniper shootings has hit the bookstands. Moose's tears and tirades moved many Americans during the round-the-clock coverage of the killings. "Three Weeks in October" reveals little or nothing about the investigation that resulted in the capture of the two sniper suspects.
    But Moose's book — and this week's anniversary of the sniper shootings — is a good prompt to recall the lessons of the brutal killings. The sniper rampage was one of the clearest tests of the ability of the new, "improved" post-September 11, 2001, law enforcement to respond to a perceived terrorist attack. President Bush announced on Oct. 14, 2002:
    "We're lending all the resources of the federal government, all that have been required, to do everything we can to assist the local law authorities to find this — whoever it is." Mr. Bush declared the attacks were "a form of terrorism." More than 700 FBI agents were involved in the case.
    Despite the high priority Mr. Bush gave the case, the FBI's response showed the same allergy to modern technology which, according to the congressional Joint Intelligence Committee report, contributed to the FBI's failure to detect the September 11 hijack conspiracy.
    After panic erupted over the first shootings, FBI trainees were brought in to staff the telephone tip lines at the Montgomery County, Md., police headquarters. The FBI, scorning the technological revolutions of the last half-century, relied on the same tried-and-true methods the bureau used to catch targets like John Dillinger in the 1930s.
    The Washington Post reported: "Authorities said information is taken down by hand on forms that make multiple carbon copies. Copies are sorted and marked 'immediate,' 'priority' or 'routine.' Tips that concern Montgomery County are put in one pile, Fairfax in another, Richmond in a third. FBI employees then drive the paperwork out to police in those locations." The Post noted complaints by numerous lawmen that "the FBI's problems handling thousands of phone tips are slowing and hampering the probe."
    When the FBI trainees were not laboriously scrawling down the latest tip, they were busy hanging up on the snipers. In a note attached to a tree after the ninth shooting, the snipers complained that tip line operators had hung up on them five times. The note denounced police "incompitence" [sic] and declared: "We have tried to contact you to start negotiation. These people took [our] calls for a hoax or a joke, so your failure to respond has cost you five lives."
     Shortly after the arrest of the two suspects, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey publicly confessed: "We were looking for a white van with white people, and we ended up with a blue car with black people."
     The only "evidence" the killers were white was the dogma of FBI and other serial killer profilers. The fixation on white killers spurred police to disregard several witness reports about darker-skinned murder suspects.
    Several eyewitnesses reported to police they had seen an old Chevrolet Caprice at the scenes of shootings, but police scorned their reports. Police spotted the snipers' ratty blue car and recorded its out-of-state license plates at least 10 different times during the month of the killings; the vehicle was reportedly stopped or seen five times at roadblocks established immediately after shootings. But the police ignored the suspects.
    Months before the sniper rampage began, five different people in Washington state contacted the FBI to report their suspicions about alleged sniper John Allen Muhammad's comments about killing police, his interest in buying silencers for his rifle, and his visit to a gunsmith to inquire about modifying a rifle to make it more easily concealed. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was also contacted repeatedly. The FBI and ATF disregarded all the warnings.
    The feds and local police, instead of using common sense and analyzing excellent leads, brought in Pentagon spy planes to canvas the entire Washington area. The use of the RC-7 planes may have been a breach of the Posse Comitatus Act (which prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement) but all that mattered was assuring frightened people the government cared and was taking action. The planes provided no information that aided the apprehension of the suspects.
    Federal agents and Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose sought to keep a tight grip on key information regarding the case. But it was a cable television leak regarding the license plate and car description that directly led to the apprehension of the suspects.
    The bungling response to the snipers is a reminder that nothing happened on September 11, 2001, to make the government more competent. Neither of the two sniper suspects would have qualified for admission to med school to become brain surgeons. Far more damage could have done by a clique of savvy, well-trained foreigner snipers.
     
    James Bovard is the author of the newly published "Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice & Peace to Rid the World of Evil" (Palgrave MacMillan).

[miko2d]

Dune: Their longest shot was roughly 30 yards.  I refuse to call them snipers.

 Distance has nothing to do with it.
 The guy who can hit targets from a great distance is just a marksman.
 A sniper is a guy who can plug you from ten yards and still escape notice.


 Anyway, I am positive that if those two stopped murdering people a bit sooner, we would now have a white guy owning a white van in jail facing execution.
 Hunt for him was going so well untill those two screwed it up...

 Maybe they could have blamed the shootings on Richard Jewell or Steven Hatfill.

 miko

[Fishu]

I thought those who can plug you from 10 yards and get out as if they werent there were assassins

[mrblack]

As a fomer Army sniper (bravo-4)
I can tell you these two mallett heads where not snipers!!
Snipers Take a life to save lives.
That is our creed.
Sounds silly but that really is how we feel about it.
If you can take out one guy with an 50CAL MG then you may have saved a whole platton of men.
These idiots where just cowards with guns thats all nothing more.
They deserve to be HUNG!:mad:

[Sandman]

Originally posted by mrblack
As a fomer Army sniper (bravo-4)
I can tell you these two mallett heads where not snipers!!
Snipers Take a life to save lives.
That is our creed.
Sounds silly but that really is how we feel about it.
If you can take out one guy with an 50CAL MG then you may have saved a whole platton of men.
These idiots where just cowards with guns thats all nothing more.
They deserve to be HUNG!:mad:

Maybe you should go take it up with Merriam-Webster...

Main Entry: 2snipe
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): sniped; snip·ing
Date: 1832
1 : to shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage

...and then, talk to Dictionary.com

snip·er    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (snpr)
n.
1. A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place.
2. One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.

...then... yourDictionarly.com

snip·er
(click to hear the word) (snpr)
n.
A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place.
One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.

...Encarta

 
snip·er (plural snip·ers)
 
noun  
 
hidden shooter: somebody who shoots at people from a concealed position

...American Heritage

sniper
 
SYLLABICATION: snip·er
PRONUNCIATION:   snpr
NOUN: 1. A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place. 2. One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.

I can't find a single dictionary that assigns any sort of moral value to the term. Maybe you can find something better to be angry about.

[mrblack]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Maybe you should go take it up with Merriam-Webster...

I can't find a single dictionary that assigns any sort of moral value to the term

Merriam-Webster  Did not train at Ft benning nor did Merriam-Webster Ever have to shoot any one Smart arse.

My guess would be you where never in the field in service of your country.
If you where then you would know exactly what moral value they would be.

[Sandman]

Anger is a choice.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by mrblack
Merriam-Webster  Did not train at Ft benning nor did Merriam-Webster Ever have to shoot any one Smart arse.

My guess would be you where never in the field in service of your country.
If you where then you would know exactly what moral value they would be.

Never in the "field" but definitely in the service... ten years USN.

[mrblack]

Nope I never get angry It is counter productive.
You would learn in the real would that in combat the sniper is a force multiplier.
he is a valuable tool to be used to help save the lives of his comrades in arms.
Or to be used to take out enemy snipers.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by mrblack
Nope I never get angry It is counter productive.
You would learn in the real would that in combat the sniper is a force multiplier.
Is is a valuable tool to be used to help save the lives ov his comrades in arms.
Or to be used to take out enemy snipers.

There's more to the "real world" than combat. Your training is meant to prepare you for something surreal and abnormal. Most people could not do what you do, nor should they. They do not understand it. The language of the warrior is not the same as the language of the civilian.

Try not to be offended.

[mrblack]

And by the way you dont have to be in the military to be a sniper.
The police employe snipers as well.

[mrblack]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
There's more to the "real world" than combat.

If your in combat there is NOTHING else!
Atleast there better not be if you plan on ever going home upright.

[Sandman]

Hehe... I can tell it's late... we're both editing behind the power curve.

[mrblack]

There is nothing more human than combat.
It the primale male at his most basic.
It brings out everything we abhore about ourselvse and in that arena makes it all normal.
Then at some point the nightmares begine.
You start to see the faces of those whome you and you alone decided when and where there life would end.
It is a very personale thing to deal with.
No matter how cold a heart or how steely your focus you will always be forever hauted by what you have choosen to do as a profession.
I had an instructor at benning tell me that everynight when he goes to sleep those that he has killed in combat come to visit him in his dreams.
Man i am so glad that I was in during peace time and never had to take a life.
I like to be able to sleep at night.

[mrblack]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Hehe... I can tell it's late... we're both editing behind the power curve.

By the way you sound like an ok guy for a sqiubie.