|
Military joins { October 15 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1581792http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1581792
Military Joins Hunt for Washington Sniper
Last Updated: October 15, 2002 09:38 PM ET
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military agreed on Tuesday to help hunt for a sniper who has been terrorizing the Washington area as police said new evidence gleaned from the latest murder could help them catch the serial killer.
A senior defense official told Reuters that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had agreed to provide U.S. military surveillance aircraft and crews to help hunt for the killer whose latest victim was shot dead on Monday while loading her car with shopping bags.
The U.S. military is forbidden by law to provide police duties domestically but the defense official, who asked not to be identified, said Rumsfeld had agreed to a request to provide the military aid.
The official declined to be more specific and stressed that the military would not be directly involved in police work and would be under the supervision of civilian law enforcement.
"We are trying to give as little information as possible to the person on the ground," the official said.
But he added that the surveillance aircraft would be manned with military crews and would be brought in from outside the Washington area which includes parts of Maryland and Virginia.
FBI employee Linda Franklin, 47, was killed in front of her husband by a single shot to the head late on Monday in the parking lot of a Home Depot hardware store in Falls Church, Virginia, west of Washington.
"There was some additional information we were able to get from last night's case and I am confident that ultimately that information is going to lead to an arrest in this case," Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Chief Thomas Manger told a news briefing.
Charles Moose, the police chief of Montgomery County in neighboring Maryland, said Franklin, an FBI intelligence analyst, was not involved in the sniper investigation and was therefore considered yet another random victim.
For the 11th time in less than two weeks, the gunman eluded authorities in spite of the quick deployment of dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement agents who shut down major arteries around the scene and searched vehicles.
The sniper's random attacks have spread fear in a wide area around Washington since he went on a 15-hour shooting spree on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, killing five people in the suburban Maryland neighborhoods, northwest of the U.S. capital, and one in Washington proper.
Two others have been shot dead in the city's southwestern suburbs in Virginia.
The sniper has also wounded two people: a 13-year-old schoolboy in Bowie, Maryland, northeast of Washington, and a woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to the south.
SPREADING FEAR AND ALARM
As the toll has mounted, fear and alarm have spread across the area with schools keeping students indoors, football games canceled and residents thinking twice before making routine trips to shopping malls or gasoline stations.
Police said they were not yet ready to give out information from witnesses on the license plate of the vehicle, which could either be a light-colored Chevrolet Astro van or a Ford Econoline van, believed to be the gunman's getaway vehicle.
Local media have variously reported that the van leaving the busy suburban shopping center, about seven miles west of Washington, after Monday's killing had Maryland or Virginia plates.
Police said the van has a silver ladder rack on the top, a detail consistent with the description of the vehicle sought after Friday's killing of a man in Virginia, and a malfunctioning left tail light.
They could not confirm local news reports that some witnesses had seen the killer get out of the van to fire and then get back in.
Police released composite pictures of two white vans similar to the ones being sought, but they have so far held back from releasing a composite of the killer.
The sniper, who uses a high-velocity rifle to pick off random victims and kill them with a hallmark single bullet, has so far eluded a massive hunt by law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, with some help from the CIA.
An FBI spokesman declined to discuss any specific investigative steps being taken, but said any help from the military would be along the lines of checking or searching military records and databases for individuals with certain training, for example.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said the agency had 400 agents working on the case, including teams of new agents in training who were working a toll-free hotline.
The CIA, at the request of law enforcement agencies, has been supplying bomb-sniffing dogs, a spokesman said. The dogs can sniff out ammunition and explosives in the sniper hunt.
As in Friday's attack, at a gasoline station in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, authorities responded quickly on Monday, closing major traffic arteries for hours as police converged on the shopping mall.
Helicopters shone high-intensity lights over woods and neighborhoods in the area, which is a mixture of strip shopping centers, single family homes and apartment buildings.
But Manger said there were so many ways to leave the suburban center that it was difficult for police to find the gunman.
Physical evidence in the cases has also been scant, with one taunting clue apparently left by the shooter near where the young boy was shot: A Tarot "Death" card with "Dear Policeman, I am God" scrawled on the back.
A $500,000 reward is offered for information leading to the sniper's capture.
© Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved. Any copying, re-publication or re-distribution of Reuters content or of any content used on this site, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent of Reuters.
Quotes and other data are provided for your personal information only, and are not intended for trading purposes. Reuters, the members of its Group and its data providers shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the quotes or other data, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
© Reuters 2002. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
|
|
