Yet another Beltway Sniper victim....

[Dr Mordrid]

Another motorist shot dead at a gas station near a freeway. This time in Spotsylvania, Virginia.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65421,00.html

The death of the victim isn't noted in this article but FOX & CNN have just reported it.

There has been a massive police response (shooting occurred near a police academy on graduation day ) shutting down freeways surrounding the area and searching vehicles.

Yet another white van sighted leaving the scene.

Dr. Mordrid

[Jammrock]

You know what's really going on don't you? This guy is too smart to STILL be driving around a white van of any kind (currently suspected of driving a white Chevy Astro). He probably scopes out companies and businesses in the area that use white mini/vans, finds their routes, camps out in one of the routes and shoots someone as a white van passes.

Thus throwing suspicion off whatever vehicle he is driving, and putting it on some random person.

Jammrock

[ZokesPro]

Originally posted by Jammrock
You know what's really going on don't you? This guy is too smart to STILL be driving around a white van of any kind (currently suspected of driving a white Chevy Astro). He probably scopes out companies and businesses in the area that use white mini/vans, finds their routes, camps out in one of the routes and shoots someone as a white van passes.

Thus throwing suspicion off whatever vehicle he is driving, and putting it on some random person.

Jammrock

That's an interesting thought.

I wouldn't want to own a white mini van though!

[thop]

i don't buy the white van story at all. i doubt there even was a white van there.
studies have shown that if you ask 10 different people about sth. they saw they will say 10 different things sometimes even totally contrary to each other. that is a bit irrelevant here, what i actually wanted to say () is:
some guy hears in the news there was a white van seen. local reporters or police asks him: "hey when you heard the shots did you see a white van speeding away?" the guy thinks a few seconds ... "yeah there must have been one! now that you say i think i saw one". happened already hundred times
but then what do i know?

jammrocks idea sounds plausible to me though.

[mutz]

...on the other hand, he may be identifying with some of the symbolism on the Tarot card. Knight on a white horse, only he knows God's work, the ultimate power - death.

He's obviously identified with something and is methodically carrying it through. But he does want credit/recognition and hopefully he'll trip up on that one...

[SpiralDragon]

thats one big sicko... hope they catch him soon and shove his gun up his ars

[RichL]

Dunno about the States, but over here white vans are just about the most common thing on the roads. Every small business that wants a delivery van invariably gets a white one as their easy to signwrite and easy to sell on later.

[Dr Mordrid]

RichL:

White vans/minivans/pickups are about as common as mud here too. I counted over 30 today just driving to the wifes school to take her lunch, and that's only a 12 mile trip.

Now for a few observations;

Speaking as someone who's been hunting with a rifle since about age 8, I don't think this is the work of just one shooter for the following reasons;

Most all of the victims were in the wide open and not moving very fast, if at all, allowing the shooter to pick his target zone.

Most riflemen are habitual in their target selection given an open shot; going for the same shot every time. Some will go for the certainty of a head shot while others will go for a heart/lung shot. It's purely a matter of training, preference and experience.

The problem is that these victims are about evenly split between those who were head-shot and those who suffered heart-lung hits.

Some might think this is just due to a "wiggle" of the rifle during sighting, but that is not necessarily the case. Most positional sighting errors will cause the bullet to drift sideways more than vertically.

It is also believed that the shooter is working from the prone position at least part of the time, including the case of the 13 year old who was shot in the chest, because of characteristic disturbances found on the ground where the card and shell casing were retrieved.

The prone position is very stable in the vertical plane, so the heart-lung shot on this child was very much an intentional choice and not a vertical miss during an attempt at a head shot.

As such I believe we are talking about at least 2 shooters.

If we are talking about a pair, or a team, of shooters this drives up the odds of terrorism being the motive.

Also: today I noticed at least 3 officers wearing "FBI Terrorism Task Force" jackets at the scene of the latest shooting.

'nuff said.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Someone on the radio made the very good point that 4 of the victims were hit across town within about an hour. Tough, but not impossible, timing for one person.

At the same time though, aren't they saying the ballistics are matching up? So far, the count of shooters and the count of rifles are still developing.

[Admiral]

Hope they get cought on some security or amateur cam by accident.

[SwAmPy]

@mutz. I don't think the tarot card meant anything. He's just teasing the cops. At 1 conference, the cops said that schools are safe. Next day, he shot the 13 year old at school. At another conference, cops said something about this guy thinking he is god. Next day, the shot someone else and left that tarot card saying that HE IS GOD.

As much as this may start pointing to the middle east terrorist group, it could also point to someone who was trained by law enforcement and something just happened that really made him go nuts.

SwAmPy

[ZokesPro]

Originally posted by SwAmPy
@mutz. I don't think the tarot card meant anything. He's just teasing the cops. At 1 conference, the cops said that schools are safe. Next day, he shot the 13 year old at school. At another conference, cops said something about this guy thinking he is god. Next day, the shot someone else and left that tarot card saying that HE IS GOD.

As much as this may start pointing to the middle east terrorist group, it could also point to someone who was trained by law enforcement and something just happened that really made him go nuts.

SwAmPy

That's interesting indeed!!!

[mutz]

...well, I have no interest in proving anything, and all we are doing here is speculating and repeating second hand reports.

If the ballistics, forensics has not been said, matches up, that's a pretty clear indication of a single rifle.

If the shooter is basing his next shot on what's reported in the news, he is deliberately picking a vulnerability that was reported as safe, i.e., the cops are impotent and he is omnipotent, God.

I picked up on the white horse on the card, white steed, white vehicle. He's mixing up his metaphors since he's mixed up himself, but he is trying to communicate something, however twisted it may be. He wants attention, credit and recognition.

You could draw some metamophor from shooting at gas stations, middle east oil > it's ours > you are dead. Or only filling your tank is a very vulnerable position and good target of opportunity, as has been selected by many drive-by shooters in Miami or LA.

You'll get much further, if you are interested, by carefully profiling the shooter than by jumping to speculative conclusions and nailing all kinds of blame around it.

[mutz]

...and while we're at it...

1. A terrorist is one who terrorizes, spreads terror. He can equally be a white Anglo-Saxon Christian Neo-Nazi as a non-white Muslim Al Quaeda fanatic, and everything in between. Since the Kieth Kidd jerk is terrorizing Lizz, that makes him a terrorist in a sense too. Call this guy a shooter.

2. If you allow your emotions and fears to override what your gut says, what your intelligence says, what your experience says, what the evidence says, you make a very lousy cop and a very good target. The shooter will probably hit a cop as soon as he's ready for that beehive. Some cops think they are omnipotent and immortal too.

3. This guy is shooting to kill. A head shot is a kill shot, but as a smaller target, more sudden movement, skull bone deflection, it is a less secure shot. A body shot is a more secure shot, larger target, less movement, but is a less certain kill. He is not without emotional content, so you might read something about where he has shot and who he has not. He is demonstrating his skill and his seemingly invulnerability, but he will escalate the risk or begin to lose the thrill. If he was a "conventional terrorist" he would likely have disappeared by now, to hit somewhere else later.

[Dr Mordrid]

1. "a terrorist is one who terrorizes". Most certainly, but then one has to go to motivation.

The attacks have been mainly on persons at gas stations; seemingly one for each major oil refiner. He also attacked one person in front of a car dealership. These provide at least a peripheral tie to oil and therefore to the middle east.

The oddball ones are the two that happened at Michaels crafts stores (one dead, one injured) and at the middle school, but the latter was most likely a "nya-nya" response to comments by the police that school children were safe. The crafts store attacks may just be his frustration at how much his wife/girlfriend spends there or a piece of misdirection.

2. In the last shooting he had a cop dead-bang and chose a civilian victim instead. In fact the cop was between the victim and the shooter investigating an auto accident. Both the cop and those involved in the accident state the bulltet whizzed over their heads.

3. IMO he has been regularly disappearing, but in this case he has been reappearing and targeting others for the last week. Can't think of a better way to terrorize people than that, and from the reaction he's getting he's doing a bang up job of it

4. as I noted before my experience is that many hunters prefer one shot over another given equal opportunity. In nearly 45 years of shooting and hunting with others this has been a consistant observation.

Dr. Mordrid