Hunting the Beltway Snipers

On 2 October 2002, James Martin was shot in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland. His murder marked the beginning of a three-week killing spree by two terrorists who became known as the Beltway Snipers.

Last year retired Maryland state trooper David Reichenbaugh published In Pursuit: The Hunt for the Beltway Snipers. It is a fascinating account from a unique perspective. Reichenbaugh was originally assigned to the task force headquarters and was in charge of the unit that had to turn the flood of tips, police records, and criminal profiles into useful intelligence. As luck would have it, he was the senior officer nearby when the blue Caprice was spotted at the I-70 rest stop. He took charge of securing the scene until the SWAT team arrived and took down the killers.

In Pursuit gives us critical insights into the hunt for the sniper. First, he shows us the overwhelming challenge faced by law enforcement as they built an IT infrastructure to handle a flood of bytes and paper that came pouring in. The pressure was immense as the clock kept ticking and the number of victims kept climbing. This is the view of the hunt far removed from press conferences and media interviews. It was invisible to the daily journalists who wrote the first draft of history.

Reichenbaugh has more than a little disdain for the media and the bureaucrats and politicians who sought to curry favor with them. Watching the media in action he was moved to wonder

Does the press care how many innocent people get killed? Is there a bloodlust on the part of the press?*

At one point during the killing spree, Gov. Paris Glendinning sought to calm fears by reassuring the public that their children were in no danger. The police knew this was fool hardy:

We were stunned. Governor Glendinning had unwittingly just put a bulls-eye on the forehead of every child in Maryland.

The snipers then went out and shot a student at a middle school.

Early on in the manhunt police had reports of a blue Caprice at the scene of several shootings. This information was lost in the deluge of tips and reports about white men in a white van.

Was it because we had programmed the public into looking for white vans and that was all they noticed? It has been proven time and again that the observations of witnesses can be influenced by predisposed ideas and beliefs.

It also did not help matters that FBI profilers told the task force that they were looking for a white man or men. (This information was quickly leaked to the press.) Cable news experts repeated and elaborated on the Angry White Male profile. Even if a by-stander noticed a blue Caprice, they would not connect it to the shootings. WHITE MEN IN A WHITE VAN was John Muhammad’s invisibility cloak.

Our federal agencies performed as they usually do. When the task force finally identified the suspects and their car, ATF and FBI brought matters to a standstill as they fought over who would make the public announcement.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Two federal agents, who oversaw their respective agencies (FBI and ATF), were arguing over who was going to release the information or BOLO..... How could we have come so far so well and now be arguing over who gets to appear before the sea of media waiting outside the joint operations center.

Reichenbaugh’s account of the arrest is a highlight of the book. As the man on the spot he had to cordon off the rest area without alerting Muhammad and Malvo. At the same time he had civilians near the blue Caprice whose safety was of paramount concern. Finally, he had to coordinate with the SWAT team for the final arrest. All of this was improvised by a scratch team of patrol officers without the benefit of planning or even a briefing.

In the meantime, back at task force HQ, political jockeying threatened to upend Reichenbaugh’s best efforts.

That it all came off without any casualties or even a single shot fired was an amazing achievement.

Sometime after Muhammad was arrested the idea began to circulate that the killing spree was just an elaborate plan to allow him to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children. Reichenbaugh is scathingly dismissive of this idea:

They planned to kill and they killed based on their plan. This wasn't about a desperate man seeking revenge against an ex-wife over child custody, as had been portrayed. Maybe that was what set Muhammad off, but this much planning and premeditation suggested terrorism -- the desire to kill.

Muhammad did not even know his ex-wife was living in Maryland at the time he began his spree. Moreover, the snipers were out of money and down to their last bullet when they were captured. So when did Muhammad intend to put the final step of his plan in action?

*"Between lawmen and reporters on the whole it is impossible, however, not to notice this difference: Most lawmen seem to hate criminals, and most reporters couldn't care less." David Gelernter, Drawing Life

Related:

The snipers and the media