Montgomery County, Maryland Police Chief Charles Moose may very well be a good man and a competent Police Chief, but he did not “capture the Beltway sniper,” nor is he, nor the rest of the law enforcement personnel involved, responsible for ending the attacks of John Allen Muhammad/Williams and John Lee Malvo.
In fact, Charles Moose echoed the feelings of the rest of the police and FBI involved in seeing the media as “a distraction at best, an interference at worst.”
The APB that they put out about the blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with New Jersey plates wasn’t given to the media, it was intercepted and that’s what ended the sniper’s run. A Kentucky trucker, named Ron Lantz heard the APB over the radio, spotted a blue Caprice with Jersey tags in a rest area off I-95 with two suspicious looking men and called police. Lantz blocked the sniper’s escape path with his rig and the capture was made without incident.
But make no mistake about it; giving that APB to the press wasn’t Moose’s idea. Moreover, given Charles Moose’s well documented aversion to racial profiling, the way he handled this case reeked of hypocrisy.
From the outset experts felt they were looking for a white male, possibly with some military training, possibly a militia-member. As a result, Muhammad and Malvo were stopped no less than five times during their killing spree and let go because they didn’t fit the description of the suspects. That would be understandable except there was no real description until the suspects contacted the authorities demanding ten million dollars. That letter’s syntax pointed to an African-American suspect, yet even that was never released to either the press or the public.
Now this reliance on “profiling,” actually, it’s called “pattern analysis,” would be consistent with a law-enforcement official who routinely used it, but Charles Moose reviled it. Perhaps the FBI forced the issue? Given the Chief’s past run-ins over the matter there’s little doubt that had the profile targeted black males, Mr. Moose would have balked at the use of that tool.
Moreover, had this case turned Charles Moose around on the issue, that too, would’ve been fine, but that’s not the case either. Shortly after the suspects were caught he alluded to the fact that the initial profile had been wrong, “proving the unreliability of race based profiling.”
This case did no such thing. The profiling was both sloppy and sketchy in this case. Sketchy, in that it was right about the culprit having some military background – John Allen Muhammad was a Gulf War vet, but it was sloppy in pointing to “a possible militia connection.” First, the targets were random, not what you’d expect from a militia member. Amazingly, in the wake of 9-11, it ignored the possible links to Islamic fanaticism – John Muhammad was a member of the Nation of Islam and worked a security detail at the “million man march.” Profiling or, more aptly, “pattern analysis” is a very useful, generally reliable tool, despite the flawed profile in this case. Most random street crime is committed by young blacks and Hispanics and most crack is sold by inner city blacks, most of the marijuana sold in New York is sold by Dominicans and most Speed is sold by Bikers. Pattern analysis is generally reliable.
In short, this case was bumbled by Charles Moose and company from the start. Ultimately it was the public, not law enforcement was the hero in this case. The public, in the person of Ron Lantz, was the man most responsible for the capture of the Beltway sniper. Let’s not forget that in our rush to lionize Charles Moose.
lgl
1) You argue that there was no weight in the profile of the killers being two white males. However, this wasn't poltically correct speculation. "Pattern analysis" as you call it, states that serial killers (which is what Muhammad was) are more often white than black by an astronomical margin. No one would be complaining about these tactics right now if it turned out they were right.
2. It wasn't just profiling that lead to us believing that the suspects were white. The initial witness statements consistently placed two white males at the scene. Obviously, this turned out to be incorrect.
3. The problem with profiling or pattern analysis is that it is only a one way street. You say that most random crime is committed by blacks and many would say that profiling along those lines helps the police do their jobs, the same as they would say that profiling Arab men helps secuirity personell at airports. But- here is the problem. The people who want this kind of profiling don't want it for the entire strata of society. What about those who applaud profiling for blacks and hispanics and arabs but complain that it is political correctness run amok when we say that a serial killer is likely to be white or that the next school shooter is likely to be white, based on the same preponderance of evidence. If we want to profile, fine. But let's do it for everyone. Whenever a child disappears let's profile the family since in about 60% of missing children cases one or both of the parents are responsible. Whenever a corporation's 401Ks are raided let's profile the likely culprit to be a middle-aged white male since they are the perpetrators in the vast majority of coorporate crimes.
4. I think you give Moose much more responsibility than he had. While Rockville was the center of the manhunt, each county conducted their own investigation: Moose was less of a leader than a coordinator and less a coordinator than a spokesperson.
5.About the ignoring of connections to Islamic fanaticism. They were ignored because there weren't any. Muhammad is Islamic and has made anti-American comments. It is possible, even probable, that a hatred of American led him to do what he did- only time will tell. But he was profiled as a serial killer and not a terrorist because he is a serial killer and not a terrorist. What is the difference? Easy. After 9/11 no one was left scratching their heads asking what it was about, why it was done. Bin Laden has never claimed responsibility for the attack but it was immediately clear that he did and, most importantly, we knew why he did it. For 3 weeks we watched as Muhammed picked off innocent people and wondered the entire time why he was doing it, what his point was. Frankly, it is a poor excuse for a terrorist attack if it depends on the culprit being caught for the message to come out- so, if Muhammed thought of himself as an Islamic terrorist akin to those of 9/11, then what he committed has to be the most pathetic, laughable terrorist attack in the history of the whole friggin world. But I don't think that is what the case is. Muhammed may hate America and this may have played a part, but in a terrorist attack the message supercedes the violence. Whatever Muhammed's political leanings, they ran a distant 13th to his desire to simply kill people. That made him a serial killer, not a terrorist.
I have to applaud you- you always help keep the dialogue about important topics going.
I find your article nothing but innuendoes, assumptions, biases, and Monday morning quarterbacking with little or no substance. Yes, the public helped, but the police managed to GET the tag number in the first place. As for the "profiles," since most profiling is dependent on the victim's commonalities, and since these victims had none, there was no basis for any of the few "sketchy" profiles we did hear.
What's your problem with Moose? With police in general? Lastly, what is the purpose of this attack? What do you hope to accomplish?