The Bobby Llama

<a href="http://www.9wusa.com/news/news_article.asp?storyid=10366" target="_blank">They</a> say it was the Death card.

David M. Payne

Good point Eudaimonist. Or it could still be Osama's boys, trying to throw the police off track and get them looking for the lone white nut sniper. I guess we will just have to wait and see, if they catch him/them that is.

David

Corwin

It is.

30-06 = .30 cal = .30 in = 7.62mm

.223 = 5.56mm

The .223 is a pretty standard rifle both for hunting, assault weapons, and to a lesser extent sniper weapons. (The 'Blade Runner' gun is a .223... Steyr-Mannlichner double trigger sniper rifle with the barrel and stock removed and a pistol grip added. Oh... and some LED's to make it look funky and 'high tech.' )

In short, it's a pretty common round.

Kosh

That's a scary irony...

"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?"
-Roy Batty, Blade Runner

fanatina

On CNN today, I heard that none of the victims have been white, and they are starting to look at it as a possible hate crime. I can't confirm this cause I haven't seen a complete list of photos of the victims. Anyone else know anything about that?

Adamantia

According to this it's not the case:

<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec02/sniper_10-10.html" target="_blank">Sniper Investigation</a>
In many instances people who commit serial crimes they focus on a type of person or a specific type of environment. We don't have this. There is no specific focus. It has been cross-gender, cross-cultural, cross-geographic, so the random nature, the very randomness on such a level makes it extremely problematic, extremely problematic.

Chilling speculation indeed...

<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1009/p01s03-usgn.html" target="_blank">Sniper vexes cops ... for now</a>
Other criminologists have a more chilling profile – that this killer or these killers are simply engaging in a cold-blooded sport.

The reason is the randomness. This does not appear to be motivated by racial hatred, as recent killings in Chicago and Pittsburgh were. "This is a spree shooter who doesn't appear to have any clear-cut motivation," says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "If there's two shooters, which would not be surprising, then it's a team sport.

Interesting comments about the tarot cards here:

<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn1012.html" target="_blank">Vindication Through Violence: Jimmy Carter and the DC Sniper</a>
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
October 12, 2002

The FBI is working on a profile of the sniper who, by this Saturday morning, has shot at least ten people in the suburban DC area. Here's CounterPunch's input. He's a He. He was in the military. Probably in Special Forces. He's white. He's in his 40s or 50s. He lives alone. He's a psychopath.

In the DC/ Virginia/ Maryland area, surrounded with retired military, this narrows down the suspect list to several hundred thousand. On the freeway you're surrounded by them. Cut one off and you risk getting your head blown open. Watch out when you go to the Mall. Beat the guy in the white van to a parking space and the next might be YOU. There are a lot of retired, highly-trained psychopathic killers out there. And some of them aren't even retired. Ask the relatives of the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/31/national/main517033.shtml" target="_blank">wives of Fort Bragg</a>, murdered by husbands back from Afghanistan, so highly trained they killed if the vacuum cleaner got on their nerves.

The DC sniper most likely had some relationship with Special Forces. Why? The tarot cards. After their Bob Kerrey-style homicidal missions, Special Forces assassins would leave tarot cards beside the bodies of the Vietnamese dead, a practice Jimmy Carter fondly remembered when he said that the destruction in Vietnam was "mutual. We bombed their villages [ie., women, children and the elderly] and they shot down our planes."

Mediancat

At least two of the victims have been white: One of the women killed the first Thursday, and Dan Meyer, the man killed last Wednesday.

I don't think this is a hate crime as strictly defined, unless of course you mean someone who hates EVERYONE.

Rob aka Mediancat

Kosh

Just playing Devil's advocate here. Can you think of any terrorist organization that might have an axe to grind with the U.S. Special Forces?

Corwin

Several. SF has been pretty heavily involved with the current situation in Afghanistan... and all over Central America.

Kosh

Exactly. So it would seem to me that the possibilities are:

- The card was left has a hoax (although the spent casing would indicate otherwise)

- The card was left by an ex-special forces man as a clue that he's ex-special forces

- The card was left by someone who wanted to mislead the authorities into thinking it was ex-special forces

any others?