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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
D.C. Area Sniper Strikes Again; Investigation Continues Into Bali Blasts; Bush Blames al Qaeda for Recent Attacks in Indonesia, Kuwait
Aired October 14, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening, again. I'm Aaron Brown.
We dispensed with the usual pleasantries at the top of the program because we just received word of another shooting in the Washington, D.C. area. This one happened in Northern Virginia. It would be the 11th person shot since this all began. If ultimately -- and we can't know this for sure yet -- but if ultimately it is tied to the other sniper shootings.
We don't know yet for certain that it is. But at first blush, at least, the situation looks terribly familiar. This shooting happened outside of a Home Depot in the Washington suburbs a short time ago. So we'll go right to The Whip to start us off tonight, and Kathleen Koch who has been covering this story now for well over a week. Kathleen, what do you know?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this word now comes just at the point where we thought we had gotten through a second weekend, indeed, a long holiday weekend, safely. But police in Fairfax County, Virginia, are telling us, indeed, that a person was shot in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in the Falls Church Seven Corners area of northern Virginia. I'll be back later on in the show with more details.
BROWN: All right. And that will just be in a moment.
Let me go through -- let's go through a couple of the other headlines here and, Kathleen, we'll get back to you.
The bombing in Bali -- CNN's Mike Chinoy joins us on the video phone. Mike, a quick headline from you tonight.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, at this hour, the investigation is getting into high gear at the blast site just behind me, with American and Australian investigators expected to join their Indonesian counterparts. Meanwhile, it is almost certain the death toll will continue to rise nearing 200, as pressure mounts on the Indonesian government to show it is serious about curbing Islamic radicalism here -- Aaron.
BROWN: Mike, thank you.
President Bush drawing connections between the attack in Bali and others in recent days. Our senior White House correspondent, John King, has the duty tonight. John, your headline please.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president sees no coincidence at all. He believes it is the work of al Qaeda, the bombing in Bali, recent attacks on U.S. troops in Kuwait, the bombing of a French tanker in Yemen. Mr. Bush sees the fingerprints of al Qaeda, but he's also brushing aside critics who say he should put Iraq on the back burner. Mr. Bush says the United States can fight two fronts in the war on terror at the same time.
BROWN: John, thank you. Back with you shortly. All the rest as well.
Here is where we think we are going tonight, but we are mindful of the fact that we have breaking news on our hands, and so that could change it all. The Indonesian bombing, as seen in the country where many of the victims hail from. Australians are calling it their 9/11 and it will be our -- their TV news tonight.
Also tonight, Illinois's governor, after declaring a moratorium on the death penalty, a process he calls deeply flawed, he now will decide if the 158 people already on death row will live or die. Clemency hearings begin this week. It is ultimately up to the governor. There is nothing easy or simple about it.
And save time -- to save the program from being entirely grim -- I'm not sure we're going to get to that point tonight, we'll see -- we'll be joined by Ben Stein, who is very smart, insightful and kind of amusing, too. We'll talk about women CEOs behaving badly, the market and, in his words, how to ruin your life.
We have a lot to do. We'll see how much we get done.
First and foremost, we go back to suburban Washington and the sniper and what appears to be, at first blush at least, another shooting. It may turn out to be something entirely different. It may. It is very early in the process.
Until tonight, police had a bit of a breather, a few days to chase down leads without the complication of another crime scene to have to deal with. But that may have changed just a short time ago.
CNN's Kathleen Koch back with us at the top. Kathleen, the details as you know them. And I know you haven't had much time to work on this.
KOCH: Well, Aaron, I think as you pointed out, we should make it clear that we do not yet have any evidence that this is definitively a sniper shooting, that it is definitively connected. There are shootings in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area every day. But the details, as we know them now, is that someone in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in a shopping center that's in the Falls Church Seven Corners area of northern Virginia was shot at some point this evening.
We were able to contact some employees in stores in the shopping center. Those employees said that some customers came in and reported hearing one single shot. Now, there also is apparently a high pursuit of some sort of vehicle on route 50 in the area. And we are being told by law enforcement authorities that they have shut down the highways in the area to look for whoever the perpetrator or perpetrators might be.
Now, this new incident comes just as police thought this weekend and, even today, that they might have had a new break in the case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOCH (voice-over): It looked tantalizing. In this Baltimore apartment police say they found an AR-15 rifle, ammunition, shell casings and a book about snipers all belonging to a former Marine. Police there, they say, because he had allegedly been shot over the weekend by his girlfriend.
The 37-year-old man also owns a white van. But sources close to the sniper investigation confirm ballistics tests on the AR-15 rifle were not a match. And a spokesman says the task force believes that at this time the incident is not related.
Meanwhile, police continued probing for clues, as a nervous community welcomed a three-day lull in the sniper shootings. For the first time, an address was given for people to mail in tips. Was this, some wondered, a veiled invitation for the killer to communicate with police?
Authorities say calls and e-mails continued to pour in, after the release Saturday of a composite graphic showing the white box truck spotted at some of the Montgomery County shooting scenes. Washington Police Monday seized a similar truck but a spokesman says there is no apparent connection. Montgomery County's police chief insists the investigation is moving forward, but offered no details to back up that claim.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: And I feel extremely good about the progress. But, again, it is always not appropriate to share the details that cause me to feel good about that. But, please, believe me, we are indeed making progress.
KOCH: Authorities deny there any plans for the federal government to take over the investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There hasn't been any talk among the investigative team of the FBI taking this case over. There would be no reason to do that. There are no resources that we have that are at our disposal that we aren't bringing to bear in this particular case.
The discussions that you're referring to are coming from outside of the task force. The group is working very effectively together and I think we'll be successful.
KOCH: A customer at the Michael's craft store, site of the first shooting October 2, has found what may have been bullet fragments inside a magazine. Police will only confirm evidence has been found there and is being processed. (END VIDEOTAPE)
And, again, we are very carefully following a new incident that has been reported in the Falls Church, Virginia area. We're being told that major arteries in the area have shut down. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the American Legion Bridge, the GW Parkway. If this, indeed, is a connected shooting, this would be the third shooting at night.
Most of the other shootings occurring during daylight, during the rush hour. The only previous night shootings were on October 3rd (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and then at 8:15 last Wednesday night on October 9, when Dean Harold Meyers of Gaithersburg was shot. Back you to, Aaron.
BROWN: OK, Kathleen. Let's try and do this. I know people in the Washington bureau are making phone calls. We know you would like to make some phone calls. We need to do some reporting here to see what we can learn as the hour goes on.
We'll check back with you, as you know more. As we continue to follow what may well be the 11th person shot since October 2. Thank you, Kathleen Koch, in suburban Washington tonight.
This tragedy has had wide-ranging implications up to, and including, had an impact on the Maryland governor's race. We may even get to that tonight. We'll just have to see how much information we can pull in, in the hour as we go along here. It is going to determine how much of the other elements of the program actually make it tonight.
One element that certainly will and must is the bombing over the weekend in Bali. Bali, I guess, until this weekend, was about as close as you can get to paradise. Tonight, it is a crime scene; it a burial ground that is so terribly familiar to those of us in the United States.
CNN's Mike Chinoy is there and joins us once again tonight on the video phone. Mike, good evening.
CHINOY: Hello, Aaron. Well investigators are at the scene. The bomb went off 50 yards behind where I'm standing now. They're sifting through the wreckage, looking for clues.
The sense here is that this was a very sophisticated operation. There were three bombs almost at the same time. A small one, and then a few seconds later, the big one, and another bomb outside the honorary U.S. consul's house, another part of Bali. All of that playing to a fairly elaborate and sophisticated operation.
Meanwhile, the casualties, the expectation is that the death toll will continue to rise. Still many bodies unidentified. The fire which broke out after the explosion leaving the remains of many of the victims so badly chard, it is virtually impossible to identify them. That task may be even more difficult by the lack of adequate morgue facilities here. Australia has now been flying in refrigerated containers to put some of those remains in to make that task a little easier. But still, very, very difficult, very painful. Just behind me, a few moment ago, an emotional scene as a group of Australians coming here to look at the site where many of their friends had died.
Many of those people weeping. A sense here that paradise has indeed been shattered.
Meanwhile, there is growing pressure on the Indonesian government, which has so far in recent months ignored pressure from the U.S. and other nations in the region to get tough on Islamic extremism, to show now that it is serious. And we're waiting to see whether the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri is going to move against the local Islamic radicals here who are widely believed to be linked to al Qaeda and, according to the defense minister here, probably responsible for this blast -- Aaron.
BROWN: But no one has yet formally claimed responsibility for this. And no one has yet explained why this site at that moment was hit, correct?
CHINOY: That's correct. There has been no formal claim of responsibility. The fact that it was a bar popular with Australians has fueled all kinds of speculation, but the general sense is this is an area that is very popular with westerners. It is an easy target, a soft target. Moreover, Bali is a predominantly Hindu island and a largely Muslim nation.
So you put all that together and that may explain why it is a tempting target. But those kinds of questions have fueled all sorts of speculation here. The Islamic radical cleric who the United States believes is involved with the radical groups here blamed American intelligence for staging the explosion themselves. So endless speculation, few hard facts, and a tremendous amount of grief -- Aaron.
BROWN: Mike, thank you. Mike Chinoy in Bali tonight while the search for the missing goes on. And they're trying to identify the dead as well.
In Washington, the president has, to his satisfaction, at least, connected the dots. He made clear today he believes that al Qaeda is involved. We don't know whether this is based on intelligence or a hunch, the president did not say.
More on the president's view from the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): The president sees an al Qaeda resurgence in the string of recent terror attacks.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It does look like a pattern of attacks that the enemy, albeit on the run, is trying to once again frighten and kill freedom-loving people.
KING: A deadly weekend bombing in Indonesia followed attacks on U.S. troops in Kuwait and the bomb of a French oil tanker in Yemen. The strike in Bali only re-enforced the White House view that Indonesia's government has been too timid in confronting terror cells. Mr. Bush said he would call President Megawati soon.
BUSH: I hope I hear the resolve of a leader that recognizes that any time terrorists take hold in a country, it is going to weaken the country itself. And there has to be a firm and deliberate desire to find out -- find the killers before they kill somebody else.
KING: This new statement, attributed to Osama bin Laden, urges more attacks. Though U.S. officials are skeptical it is authentic.
BUSH: We don't know whether bin Laden is alive or dead. You know they keep floating supposed letters and radio broadcasts. We do know that al Qaeda is still dangerous. And while we made good progress, there is a lot more work to do.
KING: Even before these new attacks, many questioned Mr. Bush's insistence on confronting Iraq now, believing al Qaeda is the more immediate threat. But the president is not swayed and called British Prime Minister Tony Blair early Monday to compare notes on Iraq.
BUSH: We'll fight if need be the war on terror on two fronts. We got plenty of capacity to do so.
KING: The president voiced concern about the possibility of attacks on the United States, and security at some bridges and ports has been increased in recent days as a precaution.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: But senior administration officials tell CNN tonight there is no credible intelligence suggesting new attacks here in the United States anytime soon. And, because of that, barring any new information, no plans here at the White House to raise the nation's alert status, now at yellow, meaning an elevated risk, to orange, which is the code for high risk of terrorist attacks -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, did the president or does the White House explain how the president reached this conclusion that al Qaeda is involved? Is it intelligence? Is it just a hunch?
KING: Senior officials tell us it's a combination of both things. In Kuwait and in Yemen, they believe they have early, but significant evidence of al Qaeda's involvement. And they do know that there are groups within Indonesia long suspected of being affiliated with al Qaeda. They say the early evidence, and as Mike Chinoy was describing, the organized nature of this bombing, the sophistication of the bombing and the attack, lead them to believe al Qaeda is responsible or al Qaeda affiliates, anyway, in all three cases.
BROWN: John, thank you. Our Senior White House Correspondent, John King, tonight. We're producing this a bit on the fly. When we come back after this short break we go back to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for the latest on what may well be the 11th sniping incident since early October. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In the Washington, D.C. suburbs that may or may not be related to the string of shootings that have gone on there since October 2, a woman was shot at a shopping center at the crossroads of Highways 50 and 7, what's called the Seven Corners area. Lots of roads have been shut down. At least early on, there was some talk of a pursuit, and we're trying to confirm that now or not.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is on one of those roads that approaches the area, and Ed is on the telephone. Ed, what can you see, and are you moving at all?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we have decided to do here is jump out of our car. All the traffic heading eastbound on highway 50, which takes you from Alexandria into Washington, D.C., into that area we've come out of Washington, D.C. and seen several police roadblocks along the way.
We're about two miles south of the Potomac River on the Virginia side of the Potomac. And we've seen several of these roadblocks set up. And police looking inside cars as they come by, everyone coming to a stop and be questioned by the police officers. Police officers here on the scene -- we haven't seen any sign of whether or not there is a chase at this moment.
We tried to talk to a couple of the officers that are here and, understandably, they are very intense and working the situation as we come -- working it right now. So we are just south of the Potomac River just outside of Washington, D.C. The initial reports that we heard is perhaps that if there was a pursuit, and as you mentioned, Aaron, we don't know for sure if that's exactly going on at this point, but that it was perhaps headed towards the Washington, D.C. area.
And that's why we're standing here at this point -- Aaron.
BROWN: And just a couple of quick ones. How far do you believe you're now from Falls Church in this area where the shooting took place?
LAVANDERA: You know, Aaron, to be quite honest, it is hard for me to gauge because we came from the city heading westbound. So against where this traffic was headed. So it is a little hard for me to gauge at this point.
BROWN: Then don't. "I don't know," is an acceptable answer to me. Why don't you continue along and, as you get to the scene, grab the phone and we'll talk some more.
LAVANDERA: You got it. Thanks, Aaron. BROWN: Thank you. That was Ed Lavandera, who is making his way to the scene. Patty Davis of our Washington bureau is doing likewise, and I think is on the phone. Patty, what can you tell me?
Well, I'm not hearing it. So we need to either fix the phone, fix the patch, because I'm not hearing Patty, OK?
Thank you. We'll get back to Patty, and we'll get back to that as we know more.
I want to go -- I told you we were going to produce this on the fly tonight, and I wasn't kidding. What might have been the major story tonight was what certainly looks like a terrorist attack in Bali and trying to figure out responsibility and implications for that.
Michael Elliott of "TIME" magazine, who is a good friend of the program and a terrific writer and reporter as well, is with us tonight. It's kind of a weird night, huh?
MICHAEL ELLIOTT, EDITOR-AT-LARGE "TIME": I'll say.
BROWN: We've got stories all over the place. Do you believe this was an al Qaeda operation in Bali, by the way?
ELLIOTT: Well, it sure looks like it. We've had a month now to digest news from intelligence agencies around the world that they were really, really concerned about al Qaeda infiltration into Indonesia. And we know that the American authorities have been talking to the Indonesian government very, very seriously for weeks, saying you have got a real, real problem. You've got to cope with that. So I guess it looks like it.
BROWN: Why Indonesia?
ELLIOTT: Well, I think there are a number of reasons for that. I mean, first of all, of course, it is a Muslim country, largest Muslim country in the world.
BROWN: Why doesn't that argue against Indonesia, by the way?
ELLIOTT: Well, in the last -- I think a more important point is this: in the last five years this has been a country in turmoil. You've had an economic crisis. You've had secession movements all over the place, and you've had a rise of fundamentalist Islam in an area where it wasn't much of a presence hitherto.
And, you know it is a nation that spans thousands of islands, 3,000 miles across. It is an easy place to hide. It is an easy place to do the logistical stuff that you need to do to pull off terrorist incidents.
BROWN: You think it is significant that so many of the victims were Australian or this was a hangout for vacationing Australians? Or is it more likely that this was an attack against westerners, using that term in its most loose form? ELLIOTT: Yes, it's a good question. I think it was just an attack on westerners. I mean I think they chose somewhere in Bali where they knew an awful lot of western tourists would be there. But, gee, this is about as painful and grim as a terrorist attack can be. This is young kids, you know, this is young Aussies who fly out to Indonesia to have some fun, hit the beaches, hit the bars.
Lots of Brits and other Europeans and Americans, too. These are backpackers. These are kids who do not deserve to be caught up in this kind of stuff. We're going to discover 18, 19, 20-year-olds dead by...
BROWN: Yes. And that's the other thing that is gotten a little bit lost perhaps tonight more than it should have, which is that they are still fairly early in this process of identifying the dead. There are literally 200...
ELLIOTT: I know. I mean I just checked out on the -- actually on the CNN Web site just before I came out. I think they've identified 40 or something like that. And the death total is going to be way over 200. This is really horrible.
BROWN: Let's assume for a second that it is al Qaeda. What does it say, if anything, after the pounding that we believe they took in Afghanistan, I believe they took in Afghanistan, that they're still able to mount a -- not some small time operation, but a big deal operation?
ELLIOTT: I think it confirms something that you and I were talking about a few weeks ago, Aaron, which is after Afghanistan fell, as it were, after they were squeezed out of Afghanistan, they dispersed to nations all over the world. Maybe Yemen, maybe Indonesia, maybe other places, maybe the Sudan, where they hooked up with indigenous groups who had their own beefs and who had their own little terrorist operations running. And you put local knowledge together with al Qaeda's logistical skill and you end up with this.
BROWN: With horror. Michael, thanks for coming in tonight. It's turned into a crazy night, and we appreciate it. It's always nice to see you. Michael Elliott, "TIME" magazine -- Editor-At-Large at "TIME."
Coming up on the program tonight, we'll check back into northern Virginia, Maryland, the D.C. suburbs as we get more information there, as another sniping incident possibly is unfolding. That and much more ahead as NEWSNIGHT continues on a Monday back home in New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our CNN bureau in Washington is aggressively reporting now every piece of information it can get on what may well turn out to be the 11th shooting, sniper shooting incident back since October 2. This one happened not very long ago at a Home Depot at a shopping center, a Home Depot store outside of Falls Church, Virginia.
A number of roads and highways have been shut down in the area of northern Virginia. Police have set up roadblocks. They are, as we heard from Ed Lavandera, a short time ago, they are talking to drivers. They're looking into cars.
They're seeing if they can get lucky and, through a roadblock, at least, find the person or persons responsible for this, if it turns out it is related. It is highly unlikely that we will know definitively that answer this evening. What has happened is that they -- if they can find the bullet, they'll give it to ATF and ATF will run ballistics tests on it and that has typically taken ten to 12 hours to get the information back.
Patty Davis in our Washington bureau has been trying to make her way towards the scene as well. Patty is on the phone. So Patty, let's try it again. Can you hear me?
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can. Aaron, can you hear me?
BROWN: Yes, we hear you good. Go ahead.
DAVIS: Well I am in -- actually right next to the Home Depot in the parking lot at Seven Corners Shopping Plaza, where Home Depot is located. Police are currently pushing us back all the way across this parking lot. One police officer told me we think we might have evidence in this parking lot, so that's why they're pushing us behind the crime scene case.
There is an ambulance located in the parking lot of the Home Depot, presumably taking care of that person. We do not know, we haven't confirmed what the condition of the person was, but the Fairfax County Police do report that a person was shot outside that Home Depot.
There is a customer that reported -- in a Barnes and Noble in that parking lot right in that same shopping plaza that reported hearing a single gunshot. As you said, highways and bridges blocked. As we were coming out here it was the traffic eastbound that was being blocked. So it may appear that the assailant took off and headed eastbound. That would be towards Washington, D.C.
We are expecting a briefing some time soon from a public information officer with the Fairfax County Police hoping that they can tell us whether this was a man or a woman who was shot, whether this person is still living or not. We just don't know a whole lot right now, Aaron. But there are police helicopters flying over. There's a massive traffic jam on Highway 50 headed east into Washington, D.C., and police are interviewing witnesses right now.
BROWN: I'm going to press our luck a little bit, your signal is fading. Just give me a sense of how many officers that you see. Is the place -- you'll excuse the expression -- just swarming with police right now?
DAVIS: I would say that's a good phrase there. It is swarming. There are lots of flashing lights here. In fact, I saw FBI agents arriving, ATF agents have arrived. I would say probably 100 police officers here, 20 police cars. Police helicopters I said flying overhead, and pretty much a sense of calm, a sense of order, but they really want to close this scene off so they can at least start investigating.
BROWN: And, Patty, can you tell me to the best of your knowledge, as the lawyer says, what time the shooting took place? Do you know that?
DAVIS: I was informed about -- I was in the CNN bureau, I would say, as far as we know it appears around 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, somewhere in that timeframe. I don't have an exact time on that.
BROWN: OK. I'm going let you do some reporting on this as well. And, Patty, nice work. We'll get back to you before the hour is done. You seem to be the closest to it all right now.
Michael Brooks, who consults with us and helps with us on broadly on security and law enforcement issues is with us from Atlanta tonight. He's been working the phones as well, so, Michael, what have you learned?
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good evening, Aaron. Earlier about 9:45 this evening, I spoke with Dave Statter (ph). He is a reporter for our WUSA affiliate in Washington, D.C., who was on the scene and had been there for about 15 minutes, and was describing the scene to me at the Home Depot, that apparently what appeared to be a woman was shot near a cupboard parking area just adjacent to the Home Depot. She apparently had a cart there with her and she apparently -- it appeared she was -- had been shot once in the head and was there on the scene.
Dave said they were shutting off most of the roads there. And law enforcement was pushing the media back to try to expand the perimeter there at Home Depot. He also said that just consequently, maybe, that there is a Michaels craft store also in the shopping center adjacent to Home Depot. And as you know, we have seen Michaels since the very first shooting in Montgomery County where no one was hit in the very first shooting, it was a shot through the Michaels craft store. We also saw a woman who was shot in a parking lot of a Michaels craft score in Spotsylvania County, and also there was a Michaels craft store a short distance away from the school where the 13-year-old was shot in Prince George's County. Whether that has any connection, that has probably been speculation all along. But just to point out that there was a Michaels craft store also in that vicinity.
BROWN: Michael, I'll let you go back and do some reporting on this, too, see who you can find in the law enforcement community, among your contacts within law enforcement, see if we can get any information.
Again, there has been another shooting. I'm not quite ready to confirm this yet, but the reports we have is that it was a woman who was shot. The shooting took place at a Home Depot outside Falls Church, Virginia. The team of CNN correspondents and producers, as you're well aware of, is working the story now. A lot of information in moments like this is flying about, and what we're going to do for the next half hour or more, depending, is as we get the pieces of it, we'll lay out what we know and we'll make it very clear when we're certain that we've been able to confirm it, and in some cases it is just observations of reporters who are trying to make their way there. We'll take a short break; our coverage continues in a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Police, reporters, everybody now is trying to get as much information about this 11th shooting -- this possible 11th shooting. Certainly much too early to confirm it. Kathleen Koch, who has become familiar with this story to most of you, she's been covering it since pretty much October 2 when it began, joins us again from Rockville, Maryland. Kathleen, what have you been able to put together?
KOCH: Aaron, right now we're sort of filling in the details. I spoke with Julie Hersey (ph), a spokesperson for the Fairfax County Police Department. She confirms that the initial call came in to them at 9:20 tonight in the parking lot of a Home Depot there in Fairfax County. She has confirmed that there is one woman who was shot. The police are not yet revealing the woman's condition.
Of the task force here in Montgomery County that has been responding now to all these sniper shootings, some 10 of them, and now this perhaps number 11, there are members of the sniper task force who are en route to the scene. At this point they say that Fairfax County Police will head up this investigation. But within likely roughly 24 hours, if and when they determine whether or not this is connected to the sniper shootings, then the task force itself will take over the investigation, an investigation, which, if this is indeed connected, would now be broadened to five counties and the District of Columbia -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just stay with me a bit. Guys, if you can put up the map again when you get a second, to put up the map again. Kathleen, you live out there and you know this area far better than I do. When you talk about the distance from, let's say, from where you are to where the incident took place tonight, how far is that from Rockville to Falls Church?
KOCH: I had a producer standing here with me who lives in that area; we were just discussing that. Brad Wright (ph), how far would you say we are right now from where the shooting took place?
BRAD WRIGHT (ph), CNN PRODUCER: Probably 20 miles.
KOCH: About 20 miles, Aaron. So it's not a great distance.
BROWN: And I'm just looking at the map now, the incident on Friday in Spotsylvania County, that's quite a bit farther away, correct?
KOCH: It is quite a bit farther away, and also police have found it extraordinarily interesting that it was also the previous Friday when a woman was shot, just outside a Michaels craft store, also in Spotsylvania County. That shooting occurring in the afternoon, leading to some degree of speculation as to whether the killer or killers has some reason to go to that area every Friday, travels south of Washington for the weekend. But, again, a very odd coincidence.
BROWN: Kathleen, let's let you go back to do some reporting here. Fairfax County Police, by the way, are now confirming that a woman has died in this incident at Falls Church, in Falls Church in Northern Virginia. They are not saying more than that at this point, but they are confirming that one person has died, a woman. Again, this incident, the first and that's the best -- in terms of nailing down when this happened, I think Kathleen gave us the best piece of information we have on that at this point that police got a call at about 9:20 Eastern time, so about an hour and 20 minutes ago, Eastern time, that there had been a shooting at a Home Depot, and now the police in Fairfax County are confirming that a woman has died in that attack.
And if it turns out that this attack is related to the others, that would be the ninth person to die -- two others wounded -- the ninth person to die since this all began, for whatever reasons this all began -- and far be it for me to know -- back on the 2nd of October.
We had gone through, all of us in the country, a weekend where nothing had happened, giving investigators some time to work through the information they had been gathering. At the briefing earlier today, Police Chief Moose was as upbeat -- if you can use that word, under the circumstances -- upbeat as we had heard him, assuring reporters and his constituents there that they had been making good progress. He didn't say what that progress was, but he did say they had made good progress.
Now that was -- that all seems like a very long time ago now. Now, we can't -- and just as we look at this, I'm not precisely sure and I gather most of you are not either what precisely we're looking at. Is that the -- you guys in the booth can help me here is that the shopping center in the distance there? OK.
In any case, the police chief indicated they had made good progress. They've been working on a second composite. You saw over the weekend, I'm sure, the composite, the picture really, of a truck -- looks like a sort of delivery truck -- that is one of the two vehicles that they had been looking for. And then the chief today talked about a second vehicle, more of a minivan sort of vehicle, also, white, as I recall it and they were going to do some sort of workup on -- some sort of workup on that. But we had not or at least if they issued that, I have not seen it.
Kathleen Koch is with us -- Kathleen.
KOCH: Aaron, police have been promising us they were working hard on that seconds composite graphic which would in many ways be similar to the one they put out Saturday night of the white box truck.
It would have the appearance of a picture, but it would be altered in such a way as to obscure the license and to indicate anything that would differentiate that white Astro Chevy van from any other Astro van. Apparently some witnesses at the scene said they had seen that it had ladders on the top or on the back or on the sides. But police are telling us they have a number of eyewitnesses to -- who saw that truck leaving the scene now that don't necessarily know it was involved, but that they think the occupants may have seen something. But I want to show that, that graphic representation to all of these witnesses, make sure they're very comfortable with it before they share it with the public, with us.
And again, the belief being that a picture is worth a thousand words and they really have had a flurry of phone calls and tips after they put out that graphic representation of the box truck Saturday.
BROWN: I'm sure you have asked these questions a hundred times. So let me ask you some of them. Do the police give you any idea how many witnesses claim to have seen, believed they saw either one truck or the other?
KOCH: They will tell us in the case of the Montgomery County shootings and the white box truck is was more than one witness at more than one shooting site. With the incident in Virginia they will only say more than one witness at that particular shooting site.
And, Aaron, they're being careful about what they share regarding the witnesses because they want people to feel comfortable to come forward, that their identities will be protected not only because they don't want to be besieged by members of the media. But also, if they're a witness to a sniper shooting, they might be in fear of their lives.
BROWN: Don't go anywhere, stay with me here. For people -- the picture you're looking at, in some ways -- talk about a picture beats a thousand words -- this gives you an idea of what police have done in the area. There is no ordinary traffic jam. They've shut down as far as we can see to the top of the screen the line of cars. It looks like perhaps three or four lanes wide, that line of cars...
KOCH: I'm listening to him.
BROWN: On the Capital Beltway is pretty much not moving or creeping along. And at the head of that and at other locations in the suburban Washington area, ahead of that, there are police roadblocks.
Ed Lavandera, who is one of our reporters working this tonight, in trying to make his way to the area, talked about the roadblocks that in place. That police are looking through cars, talking to the occupants of cars.
You know, it is not an unreasonable thing to say they hope to get lucky here. They hope that whoever did this, and whoever has been doing this -- assuming it is the same person -- whoever been doing this is caught up in that traffic somewhere and is not peeling off as we're seeing some of the cars and trucks able to do.
Again, the shooting tonight -- and we cannot yet confirm it is related to the others -- but we do know it is another fatality, took place in Falls Church in Northern Virginia. And you can see its proximity there to -- it is the red dot, I believe -- and you can see its proximity to the other shootings that have taken place in Prince William County and Montgomery County and that further to the south, which was the incident last Friday. There were no incidents over the weekend.
Kathleen, you were talking about the task force ultimately if this proves to be connected...
KOCH: Nineteen ninety what?
BROWN: ... will lead the investigation -- I hope you're able to hear me. Just run down who is in that task force what agencies are represented by that task force.
KOCH: Aaron, who we have involved in this task force is, of course, the Montgomery County Police Department. The site of where the first flurry of shootings occurred. We also have the FBI. We have the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. We have the Secret Service. And then all the various counties now where shootings have occurred. Prince William County, Prince George's County, Spotsylvania County, Washington, D.C. and, of course, Montgomery County. So all these people are members of the task force.
There was a meeting of law enforcement officials throughout the region, more than two dozen law enforcement officials with -- they wouldn't tell us if they went as far north as up into Pennsylvania, but this was back on Friday. Everyone being given the details on this case as much as they needed to know and planning advice on how to respond if something like this were to happen in their county.
BROWN: We're looking at -- I'm not sure, Kathleen, if you is a monitor there or not...
KOCH: I can see it.
BROWN: ... the scene of 495 and 95 at the Capital Beltway. It is just one area around the Capital that's been shut down. We're told the George Washington -- roadblocks have been set up, I'm not sure that shut down is the precise term. George Washington Parkway, the American Legion Bridge, Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Washington and suburban Washington areas.
Again the first report of this came in at 9:20 tonight. Employees who are working at the shopping center said customers ran into the stores, multiple stores, said they heard a single shot. We now know that one person was hit.
This is so frighteningly similar to every other one of these incidents where you have a single shot fired in most cases. Not all, but in most cases, fatality. All of them taking place in very public areas. People going about the most routine of tasks: filling up their car with gas, mowing the lawn, going now, it would appear, to a Home Depot in the suburban Washington area.
As we said a moment ago, the police chief in Montgomery County said earlier today, at the only briefing I believe they held today, that they felt they were make good progress. He didn't indicate why and in all honesty they have been -- the relationship between the police and the media has gotten a little -- a little tight over the past few days.
Police were not happy that someone leaked to a reporter late last week that a Tarot card had been found. In fact they were most unhappy that that had been leaked and that ultimately, not simply leaked, but, of course, reported. It is a two-way street in that regard.
And since that point, the relationship between the media and the police has been a little more strained. It is a relationship and it is a functioning relationship. But it is not perhaps as comfortable as either side would like it to be, particularly at a moment like this when you're trying to figure out what happened.
And I think that's, you know, the most important thing is to separate what is speculation or rumor or possibility from what is a fact. And I think the facts here are simple as we can report them in unpleasant as we do report them.
We have another victim, a woman has died after being shot at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia. Whether that shooting is related to the others in the area we cannot yet say. And won't be able to say until the ballistics work is done on that, assuming they're able to get a bullet and to do the testing that ATF would do.
Kathleen Koch.
KOCH: Aaron, the scene that we're watching here is eerily reminiscent of what we saw, obviously, Friday morning on 95 -- Highway I-95 running north and south between Washington D.C. and Richmond, Virginia, when the shooting occurred Friday.
And now we are hearing with this shooting, that occurred tonight, police are now pursuing a 1990 Dodge van. We don't know what color it is. But it was last seen driving east on Route 50. Hopefully now, again, as they have put this emergency action into effect where they have shut off every single highway route, that they are -- you know, that this van -- we're picking this up on scanners at this point, that this the van may be stuck in traffic and perhaps they will catch the perpetrator or perpetrators if they are indeed in this van. Though we don't know why they're looking for them, if it was indeed eyewitness or just seen leaving the scene very rapidly -- Aaron.
BROWN: Let me -- I want to parse your words a little bit. Are they searching for this van or are they pursuing this van?
KOCH: They're searching for the van at this point, Aaron. They have not seen it but, again, we don't know where this is coming from. We're hearing it from the scanners. But that they're looking for the van but they're not in pursuit at this point.
BROWN: OK, so they are searching for and, again, tell me the make and model.
KOCH: All we're hearing is a 1990 Dodge van, not a lot of details. Not the color, which would be most helpful. BROWN: And just -- you stay with me because you know this stuff backwards. That would be then the third vehicle that has made its way into the set of facts of this story. There's the white box-shaped truck. I don't know if we have a picture of that, that mostly I assume, most of you saw over the weekend.
And then this afternoon they started talking about a second vehicle, a van-like vehicle, an Astro, I think that's a Ford Astrovan. If it is not, I apologize to whoever makes it. And now they are looking for an older model, 1990, 1991 van, Chrysler van of some sort or another, that may or may not have anything to do with this. We don't know. But we know they're looking for it.
We know this much, that the incident tonight, if it is confirmed to be connected, will be the fifth county, the fifth different county where the sniper has struck. To this point, and many of you could repeat this along with me, each of the victims has been shot with a single bullet, a .223 caliber bullet. They believe that the shootings have taken place anywhere from 100 to 150 yards, perhaps longer.
Help me, guys, tell me what we're looking at, please. OK, this is the shopping center the area, thank you, where the shooting took place. Obviously, as we get these pictures in, we're putting them up so you can see what is going on as we see them and sometimes we just need to get a little information to help point you to what we're seeing.
You can see just looking at this though, I don't know if we can go back, if we have control over that, this is the shopping center also, but what we noticed there in the previous shot, it almost looked like a security camera shot. I don't think it was -- was police looking in cars, looking in every car in their parking lot, going through see if there is anything to be seen, anything to be found in that -- in the parking lot of that shopping center.
And the other thing we noticed and if we -- as we go back or when we go back, we'll see if I'm right, because let's look at this quickly, there are an awful lot of police officers there. Patty Davis of our Washington bureau, who was on the scene, and we talked to her on the phone a bit ago, said she believed well over 100 police officers were there.
That would not surprise us at all given the magnitude of what might have taken place there. The helicopters are all over the area and roads are blocked all over the area, all over the area as well.
Kathleen, when the chief, Chief Moose, briefed earlier today, he talked about optimistic signs. I don't think that's precisely what he -- were his words, but he said they made good progress. But no indication what that meant, correct?
KOCH: No, Aaron. He said he wasn't going to share with us the reason for his optimism and as you had pointed out earlier, the police in this case have been having fewer and fewer briefings every day. We're down to one briefing a day. And we reporters are unsure as to whether it's they don't want to share any information, such as -- not to jeopardize this case or if perhaps it is because of the growing belief that the killer or killers is watching these press conferences, these briefings and deriving some sort of satisfaction from them and perhaps this may be a new police tactic, to make all of this less rewarding, less fulfilling to the killer so that he or they might perhaps stop their killing spree.
But, if that was the point of cutting back on these press conferences, clearly if this is a connected shooting, it hasn't worked.
BROWN: Well, we don't blame them for doing that. That's perfectly appropriate, I guess, under the circumstances. Each side in these sorts of situations has a job to do and hopefully everybody goes about their task professionally.
Remember, when this began, asking Cliff Van Zandt, the former FBI profiler, if he thought the perpetrator or perpetrators was watching and he said, Absolutely. He, in his view, his profile of whoever is responsible for this, that this is someone who takes great satisfaction from the fact that police are stumped on the one hand, and that reporters and television networks are aggressively reporting this story, in some cases perhaps in the -- as Clint put it, in the perpetrator's view that he's holding everyone hostage to what he is doing.
We expect, I'm not sure when this will happen, that the chief of police in Fairfax County will deliver some sort of statement. What he will say beyond the fact that there has been another shooting and another fatality would be absolute speculation. There is no point in doing that.
But we'll stay with you. We expect that to happen reasonably soon. And we'll just stay with this for awhile. We're coming up on four minutes to 11:00 Western time. And we're not going anywhere. Obviously, as facts are starting to slowly fall into place.
The critical fact, I think, well let me just suggest there are two critical facts: the first of which is the most obvious who is doing this and we don't know. But they are searching for another van, the third van.
Beyond that, the thing that I think we most want to know now, as you look at the traffic backup on the Beltway in Washington, where these roadblocks have been set up, what we want to know now is whether or not this incident is connected to the others.
Eight people have already died. Two people have been seriously wounded. Another person, a woman, is now dead. Whether she is the ninth victim of this murderer, we do not yet know and probably will not know, probably will not know until sometime tomorrow when all the ballistics work is done. Obviously, and I know we're being repetitious, but we're trying to keep everybody on the same page as they join us here, coming up towards the top of the hour. There are a lot of reasons to see the connections.
A public place, for one. A single shot fired for another. There are other reasons to wonder. We won't go beyond wonder, but to wonder. Most of these incidents that have happened, as you look at another roadblock and, wow, I mean nothing is moving as the police go car to car, literally car to car, in hopes that they will find whoever is responsible for this. They need to find a bullet and then they need to test the bullet. And that will presumably, can't be certain, but presumably will show this is connected to the others or it is not.
And we expect, again, the police chief in Fairfax County, where this latest incident occurred, this latest shooting occurred, to brief reporters shortly. We'll bring you that as we get it. We are actually a little more quickly than I thought we might tonight, we are putting together a reasonable timeline of when this happened.
The shooting itself happened sometime around 9:20. The first police call, we believe, was received in Fairfax County at about 9:20. That squares with roughly how we heard the news as we were making our way up here tonight.
Police response, as you can see, is formidable right now, with road blocks set up in a variety of locations in linking in the kind of circle that goes around Washington D.C. and they are checking cars and checking the people in the cars and in hopes they'll find something.
They're also looking for a third vehicle. They were looking for the box truck, then the Ford Astro van and now there is a 1990 or 1991 Chryslver van, I think Kathleen said, that they are also looking for.
(CONTINUING COVERAGE OF BREAKING NEWS)
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Into Bali Blasts; Bush Blames al Qaeda for Recent Attacks in Indonesia, Kuwait>
Aired October 14, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening, again. I'm Aaron Brown.
We dispensed with the usual pleasantries at the top of the program because we just received word of another shooting in the Washington, D.C. area. This one happened in Northern Virginia. It would be the 11th person shot since this all began. If ultimately -- and we can't know this for sure yet -- but if ultimately it is tied to the other sniper shootings.
We don't know yet for certain that it is. But at first blush, at least, the situation looks terribly familiar. This shooting happened outside of a Home Depot in the Washington suburbs a short time ago. So we'll go right to The Whip to start us off tonight, and Kathleen Koch who has been covering this story now for well over a week. Kathleen, what do you know?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this word now comes just at the point where we thought we had gotten through a second weekend, indeed, a long holiday weekend, safely. But police in Fairfax County, Virginia, are telling us, indeed, that a person was shot in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in the Falls Church Seven Corners area of northern Virginia. I'll be back later on in the show with more details.
BROWN: All right. And that will just be in a moment.
Let me go through -- let's go through a couple of the other headlines here and, Kathleen, we'll get back to you.
The bombing in Bali -- CNN's Mike Chinoy joins us on the video phone. Mike, a quick headline from you tonight.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, at this hour, the investigation is getting into high gear at the blast site just behind me, with American and Australian investigators expected to join their Indonesian counterparts. Meanwhile, it is almost certain the death toll will continue to rise nearing 200, as pressure mounts on the Indonesian government to show it is serious about curbing Islamic radicalism here -- Aaron.
BROWN: Mike, thank you.
President Bush drawing connections between the attack in Bali and others in recent days. Our senior White House correspondent, John King, has the duty tonight. John, your headline please.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president sees no coincidence at all. He believes it is the work of al Qaeda, the bombing in Bali, recent attacks on U.S. troops in Kuwait, the bombing of a French tanker in Yemen. Mr. Bush sees the fingerprints of al Qaeda, but he's also brushing aside critics who say he should put Iraq on the back burner. Mr. Bush says the United States can fight two fronts in the war on terror at the same time.
BROWN: John, thank you. Back with you shortly. All the rest as well.
Here is where we think we are going tonight, but we are mindful of the fact that we have breaking news on our hands, and so that could change it all. The Indonesian bombing, as seen in the country where many of the victims hail from. Australians are calling it their 9/11 and it will be our -- their TV news tonight.
Also tonight, Illinois's governor, after declaring a moratorium on the death penalty, a process he calls deeply flawed, he now will decide if the 158 people already on death row will live or die. Clemency hearings begin this week. It is ultimately up to the governor. There is nothing easy or simple about it.
And save time -- to save the program from being entirely grim -- I'm not sure we're going to get to that point tonight, we'll see -- we'll be joined by Ben Stein, who is very smart, insightful and kind of amusing, too. We'll talk about women CEOs behaving badly, the market and, in his words, how to ruin your life.
We have a lot to do. We'll see how much we get done.
First and foremost, we go back to suburban Washington and the sniper and what appears to be, at first blush at least, another shooting. It may turn out to be something entirely different. It may. It is very early in the process.
Until tonight, police had a bit of a breather, a few days to chase down leads without the complication of another crime scene to have to deal with. But that may have changed just a short time ago.
CNN's Kathleen Koch back with us at the top. Kathleen, the details as you know them. And I know you haven't had much time to work on this.
KOCH: Well, Aaron, I think as you pointed out, we should make it clear that we do not yet have any evidence that this is definitively a sniper shooting, that it is definitively connected. There are shootings in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area every day. But the details, as we know them now, is that someone in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in a shopping center that's in the Falls Church Seven Corners area of northern Virginia was shot at some point this evening.
We were able to contact some employees in stores in the shopping center. Those employees said that some customers came in and reported hearing one single shot. Now, there also is apparently a high pursuit of some sort of vehicle on route 50 in the area. And we are being told by law enforcement authorities that they have shut down the highways in the area to look for whoever the perpetrator or perpetrators might be.
Now, this new incident comes just as police thought this weekend and, even today, that they might have had a new break in the case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOCH (voice-over): It looked tantalizing. In this Baltimore apartment police say they found an AR-15 rifle, ammunition, shell casings and a book about snipers all belonging to a former Marine. Police there, they say, because he had allegedly been shot over the weekend by his girlfriend.
The 37-year-old man also owns a white van. But sources close to the sniper investigation confirm ballistics tests on the AR-15 rifle were not a match. And a spokesman says the task force believes that at this time the incident is not related.
Meanwhile, police continued probing for clues, as a nervous community welcomed a three-day lull in the sniper shootings. For the first time, an address was given for people to mail in tips. Was this, some wondered, a veiled invitation for the killer to communicate with police?
Authorities say calls and e-mails continued to pour in, after the release Saturday of a composite graphic showing the white box truck spotted at some of the Montgomery County shooting scenes. Washington Police Monday seized a similar truck but a spokesman says there is no apparent connection. Montgomery County's police chief insists the investigation is moving forward, but offered no details to back up that claim.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: And I feel extremely good about the progress. But, again, it is always not appropriate to share the details that cause me to feel good about that. But, please, believe me, we are indeed making progress.
KOCH: Authorities deny there any plans for the federal government to take over the investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There hasn't been any talk among the investigative team of the FBI taking this case over. There would be no reason to do that. There are no resources that we have that are at our disposal that we aren't bringing to bear in this particular case.
The discussions that you're referring to are coming from outside of the task force. The group is working very effectively together and I think we'll be successful.
KOCH: A customer at the Michael's craft store, site of the first shooting October 2, has found what may have been bullet fragments inside a magazine. Police will only confirm evidence has been found there and is being processed. (END VIDEOTAPE)
And, again, we are very carefully following a new incident that has been reported in the Falls Church, Virginia area. We're being told that major arteries in the area have shut down. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the American Legion Bridge, the GW Parkway. If this, indeed, is a connected shooting, this would be the third shooting at night.
Most of the other shootings occurring during daylight, during the rush hour. The only previous night shootings were on October 3rd (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and then at 8:15 last Wednesday night on October 9, when Dean Harold Meyers of Gaithersburg was shot. Back you to, Aaron.
BROWN: OK, Kathleen. Let's try and do this. I know people in the Washington bureau are making phone calls. We know you would like to make some phone calls. We need to do some reporting here to see what we can learn as the hour goes on.
We'll check back with you, as you know more. As we continue to follow what may well be the 11th person shot since October 2. Thank you, Kathleen Koch, in suburban Washington tonight.
This tragedy has had wide-ranging implications up to, and including, had an impact on the Maryland governor's race. We may even get to that tonight. We'll just have to see how much information we can pull in, in the hour as we go along here. It is going to determine how much of the other elements of the program actually make it tonight.
One element that certainly will and must is the bombing over the weekend in Bali. Bali, I guess, until this weekend, was about as close as you can get to paradise. Tonight, it is a crime scene; it a burial ground that is so terribly familiar to those of us in the United States.
CNN's Mike Chinoy is there and joins us once again tonight on the video phone. Mike, good evening.
CHINOY: Hello, Aaron. Well investigators are at the scene. The bomb went off 50 yards behind where I'm standing now. They're sifting through the wreckage, looking for clues.
The sense here is that this was a very sophisticated operation. There were three bombs almost at the same time. A small one, and then a few seconds later, the big one, and another bomb outside the honorary U.S. consul's house, another part of Bali. All of that playing to a fairly elaborate and sophisticated operation.
Meanwhile, the casualties, the expectation is that the death toll will continue to rise. Still many bodies unidentified. The fire which broke out after the explosion leaving the remains of many of the victims so badly chard, it is virtually impossible to identify them. That task may be even more difficult by the lack of adequate morgue facilities here. Australia has now been flying in refrigerated containers to put some of those remains in to make that task a little easier. But still, very, very difficult, very painful. Just behind me, a few moment ago, an emotional scene as a group of Australians coming here to look at the site where many of their friends had died.
Many of those people weeping. A sense here that paradise has indeed been shattered.
Meanwhile, there is growing pressure on the Indonesian government, which has so far in recent months ignored pressure from the U.S. and other nations in the region to get tough on Islamic extremism, to show now that it is serious. And we're waiting to see whether the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri is going to move against the local Islamic radicals here who are widely believed to be linked to al Qaeda and, according to the defense minister here, probably responsible for this blast -- Aaron.
BROWN: But no one has yet formally claimed responsibility for this. And no one has yet explained why this site at that moment was hit, correct?
CHINOY: That's correct. There has been no formal claim of responsibility. The fact that it was a bar popular with Australians has fueled all kinds of speculation, but the general sense is this is an area that is very popular with westerners. It is an easy target, a soft target. Moreover, Bali is a predominantly Hindu island and a largely Muslim nation.
So you put all that together and that may explain why it is a tempting target. But those kinds of questions have fueled all sorts of speculation here. The Islamic radical cleric who the United States believes is involved with the radical groups here blamed American intelligence for staging the explosion themselves. So endless speculation, few hard facts, and a tremendous amount of grief -- Aaron.
BROWN: Mike, thank you. Mike Chinoy in Bali tonight while the search for the missing goes on. And they're trying to identify the dead as well.
In Washington, the president has, to his satisfaction, at least, connected the dots. He made clear today he believes that al Qaeda is involved. We don't know whether this is based on intelligence or a hunch, the president did not say.
More on the president's view from the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): The president sees an al Qaeda resurgence in the string of recent terror attacks.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It does look like a pattern of attacks that the enemy, albeit on the run, is trying to once again frighten and kill freedom-loving people.
KING: A deadly weekend bombing in Indonesia followed attacks on U.S. troops in Kuwait and the bomb of a French oil tanker in Yemen. The strike in Bali only re-enforced the White House view that Indonesia's government has been too timid in confronting terror cells. Mr. Bush said he would call President Megawati soon.
BUSH: I hope I hear the resolve of a leader that recognizes that any time terrorists take hold in a country, it is going to weaken the country itself. And there has to be a firm and deliberate desire to find out -- find the killers before they kill somebody else.
KING: This new statement, attributed to Osama bin Laden, urges more attacks. Though U.S. officials are skeptical it is authentic.
BUSH: We don't know whether bin Laden is alive or dead. You know they keep floating supposed letters and radio broadcasts. We do know that al Qaeda is still dangerous. And while we made good progress, there is a lot more work to do.
KING: Even before these new attacks, many questioned Mr. Bush's insistence on confronting Iraq now, believing al Qaeda is the more immediate threat. But the president is not swayed and called British Prime Minister Tony Blair early Monday to compare notes on Iraq.
BUSH: We'll fight if need be the war on terror on two fronts. We got plenty of capacity to do so.
KING: The president voiced concern about the possibility of attacks on the United States, and security at some bridges and ports has been increased in recent days as a precaution.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: But senior administration officials tell CNN tonight there is no credible intelligence suggesting new attacks here in the United States anytime soon. And, because of that, barring any new information, no plans here at the White House to raise the nation's alert status, now at yellow, meaning an elevated risk, to orange, which is the code for high risk of terrorist attacks -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, did the president or does the White House explain how the president reached this conclusion that al Qaeda is involved? Is it intelligence? Is it just a hunch?
KING: Senior officials tell us it's a combination of both things. In Kuwait and in Yemen, they believe they have early, but significant evidence of al Qaeda's involvement. And they do know that there are groups within Indonesia long suspected of being affiliated with al Qaeda. They say the early evidence, and as Mike Chinoy was describing, the organized nature of this bombing, the sophistication of the bombing and the attack, lead them to believe al Qaeda is responsible or al Qaeda affiliates, anyway, in all three cases.
BROWN: John, thank you. Our Senior White House Correspondent, John King, tonight. We're producing this a bit on the fly. When we come back after this short break we go back to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for the latest on what may well be the 11th sniping incident since early October. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In the Washington, D.C. suburbs that may or may not be related to the string of shootings that have gone on there since October 2, a woman was shot at a shopping center at the crossroads of Highways 50 and 7, what's called the Seven Corners area. Lots of roads have been shut down. At least early on, there was some talk of a pursuit, and we're trying to confirm that now or not.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is on one of those roads that approaches the area, and Ed is on the telephone. Ed, what can you see, and are you moving at all?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we have decided to do here is jump out of our car. All the traffic heading eastbound on highway 50, which takes you from Alexandria into Washington, D.C., into that area we've come out of Washington, D.C. and seen several police roadblocks along the way.
We're about two miles south of the Potomac River on the Virginia side of the Potomac. And we've seen several of these roadblocks set up. And police looking inside cars as they come by, everyone coming to a stop and be questioned by the police officers. Police officers here on the scene -- we haven't seen any sign of whether or not there is a chase at this moment.
We tried to talk to a couple of the officers that are here and, understandably, they are very intense and working the situation as we come -- working it right now. So we are just south of the Potomac River just outside of Washington, D.C. The initial reports that we heard is perhaps that if there was a pursuit, and as you mentioned, Aaron, we don't know for sure if that's exactly going on at this point, but that it was perhaps headed towards the Washington, D.C. area.
And that's why we're standing here at this point -- Aaron.
BROWN: And just a couple of quick ones. How far do you believe you're now from Falls Church in this area where the shooting took place?
LAVANDERA: You know, Aaron, to be quite honest, it is hard for me to gauge because we came from the city heading westbound. So against where this traffic was headed. So it is a little hard for me to gauge at this point.
BROWN: Then don't. "I don't know," is an acceptable answer to me. Why don't you continue along and, as you get to the scene, grab the phone and we'll talk some more.
LAVANDERA: You got it. Thanks, Aaron. BROWN: Thank you. That was Ed Lavandera, who is making his way to the scene. Patty Davis of our Washington bureau is doing likewise, and I think is on the phone. Patty, what can you tell me?
Well, I'm not hearing it. So we need to either fix the phone, fix the patch, because I'm not hearing Patty, OK?
Thank you. We'll get back to Patty, and we'll get back to that as we know more.
I want to go -- I told you we were going to produce this on the fly tonight, and I wasn't kidding. What might have been the major story tonight was what certainly looks like a terrorist attack in Bali and trying to figure out responsibility and implications for that.
Michael Elliott of "TIME" magazine, who is a good friend of the program and a terrific writer and reporter as well, is with us tonight. It's kind of a weird night, huh?
MICHAEL ELLIOTT, EDITOR-AT-LARGE "TIME": I'll say.
BROWN: We've got stories all over the place. Do you believe this was an al Qaeda operation in Bali, by the way?
ELLIOTT: Well, it sure looks like it. We've had a month now to digest news from intelligence agencies around the world that they were really, really concerned about al Qaeda infiltration into Indonesia. And we know that the American authorities have been talking to the Indonesian government very, very seriously for weeks, saying you have got a real, real problem. You've got to cope with that. So I guess it looks like it.
BROWN: Why Indonesia?
ELLIOTT: Well, I think there are a number of reasons for that. I mean, first of all, of course, it is a Muslim country, largest Muslim country in the world.
BROWN: Why doesn't that argue against Indonesia, by the way?
ELLIOTT: Well, in the last -- I think a more important point is this: in the last five years this has been a country in turmoil. You've had an economic crisis. You've had secession movements all over the place, and you've had a rise of fundamentalist Islam in an area where it wasn't much of a presence hitherto.
And, you know it is a nation that spans thousands of islands, 3,000 miles across. It is an easy place to hide. It is an easy place to do the logistical stuff that you need to do to pull off terrorist incidents.
BROWN: You think it is significant that so many of the victims were Australian or this was a hangout for vacationing Australians? Or is it more likely that this was an attack against westerners, using that term in its most loose form? ELLIOTT: Yes, it's a good question. I think it was just an attack on westerners. I mean I think they chose somewhere in Bali where they knew an awful lot of western tourists would be there. But, gee, this is about as painful and grim as a terrorist attack can be. This is young kids, you know, this is young Aussies who fly out to Indonesia to have some fun, hit the beaches, hit the bars.
Lots of Brits and other Europeans and Americans, too. These are backpackers. These are kids who do not deserve to be caught up in this kind of stuff. We're going to discover 18, 19, 20-year-olds dead by...
BROWN: Yes. And that's the other thing that is gotten a little bit lost perhaps tonight more than it should have, which is that they are still fairly early in this process of identifying the dead. There are literally 200...
ELLIOTT: I know. I mean I just checked out on the -- actually on the CNN Web site just before I came out. I think they've identified 40 or something like that. And the death total is going to be way over 200. This is really horrible.
BROWN: Let's assume for a second that it is al Qaeda. What does it say, if anything, after the pounding that we believe they took in Afghanistan, I believe they took in Afghanistan, that they're still able to mount a -- not some small time operation, but a big deal operation?
ELLIOTT: I think it confirms something that you and I were talking about a few weeks ago, Aaron, which is after Afghanistan fell, as it were, after they were squeezed out of Afghanistan, they dispersed to nations all over the world. Maybe Yemen, maybe Indonesia, maybe other places, maybe the Sudan, where they hooked up with indigenous groups who had their own beefs and who had their own little terrorist operations running. And you put local knowledge together with al Qaeda's logistical skill and you end up with this.
BROWN: With horror. Michael, thanks for coming in tonight. It's turned into a crazy night, and we appreciate it. It's always nice to see you. Michael Elliott, "TIME" magazine -- Editor-At-Large at "TIME."
Coming up on the program tonight, we'll check back into northern Virginia, Maryland, the D.C. suburbs as we get more information there, as another sniping incident possibly is unfolding. That and much more ahead as NEWSNIGHT continues on a Monday back home in New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our CNN bureau in Washington is aggressively reporting now every piece of information it can get on what may well turn out to be the 11th shooting, sniper shooting incident back since October 2. This one happened not very long ago at a Home Depot at a shopping center, a Home Depot store outside of Falls Church, Virginia.
A number of roads and highways have been shut down in the area of northern Virginia. Police have set up roadblocks. They are, as we heard from Ed Lavandera, a short time ago, they are talking to drivers. They're looking into cars.
They're seeing if they can get lucky and, through a roadblock, at least, find the person or persons responsible for this, if it turns out it is related. It is highly unlikely that we will know definitively that answer this evening. What has happened is that they -- if they can find the bullet, they'll give it to ATF and ATF will run ballistics tests on it and that has typically taken ten to 12 hours to get the information back.
Patty Davis in our Washington bureau has been trying to make her way towards the scene as well. Patty is on the phone. So Patty, let's try it again. Can you hear me?
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can. Aaron, can you hear me?
BROWN: Yes, we hear you good. Go ahead.
DAVIS: Well I am in -- actually right next to the Home Depot in the parking lot at Seven Corners Shopping Plaza, where Home Depot is located. Police are currently pushing us back all the way across this parking lot. One police officer told me we think we might have evidence in this parking lot, so that's why they're pushing us behind the crime scene case.
There is an ambulance located in the parking lot of the Home Depot, presumably taking care of that person. We do not know, we haven't confirmed what the condition of the person was, but the Fairfax County Police do report that a person was shot outside that Home Depot.
There is a customer that reported -- in a Barnes and Noble in that parking lot right in that same shopping plaza that reported hearing a single gunshot. As you said, highways and bridges blocked. As we were coming out here it was the traffic eastbound that was being blocked. So it may appear that the assailant took off and headed eastbound. That would be towards Washington, D.C.
We are expecting a briefing some time soon from a public information officer with the Fairfax County Police hoping that they can tell us whether this was a man or a woman who was shot, whether this person is still living or not. We just don't know a whole lot right now, Aaron. But there are police helicopters flying over. There's a massive traffic jam on Highway 50 headed east into Washington, D.C., and police are interviewing witnesses right now.
BROWN: I'm going to press our luck a little bit, your signal is fading. Just give me a sense of how many officers that you see. Is the place -- you'll excuse the expression -- just swarming with police right now?
DAVIS: I would say that's a good phrase there. It is swarming. There are lots of flashing lights here. In fact, I saw FBI agents arriving, ATF agents have arrived. I would say probably 100 police officers here, 20 police cars. Police helicopters I said flying overhead, and pretty much a sense of calm, a sense of order, but they really want to close this scene off so they can at least start investigating.
BROWN: And, Patty, can you tell me to the best of your knowledge, as the lawyer says, what time the shooting took place? Do you know that?
DAVIS: I was informed about -- I was in the CNN bureau, I would say, as far as we know it appears around 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, somewhere in that timeframe. I don't have an exact time on that.
BROWN: OK. I'm going let you do some reporting on this as well. And, Patty, nice work. We'll get back to you before the hour is done. You seem to be the closest to it all right now.
Michael Brooks, who consults with us and helps with us on broadly on security and law enforcement issues is with us from Atlanta tonight. He's been working the phones as well, so, Michael, what have you learned?
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good evening, Aaron. Earlier about 9:45 this evening, I spoke with Dave Statter (ph). He is a reporter for our WUSA affiliate in Washington, D.C., who was on the scene and had been there for about 15 minutes, and was describing the scene to me at the Home Depot, that apparently what appeared to be a woman was shot near a cupboard parking area just adjacent to the Home Depot. She apparently had a cart there with her and she apparently -- it appeared she was -- had been shot once in the head and was there on the scene.
Dave said they were shutting off most of the roads there. And law enforcement was pushing the media back to try to expand the perimeter there at Home Depot. He also said that just consequently, maybe, that there is a Michaels craft store also in the shopping center adjacent to Home Depot. And as you know, we have seen Michaels since the very first shooting in Montgomery County where no one was hit in the very first shooting, it was a shot through the Michaels craft store. We also saw a woman who was shot in a parking lot of a Michaels craft score in Spotsylvania County, and also there was a Michaels craft store a short distance away from the school where the 13-year-old was shot in Prince George's County. Whether that has any connection, that has probably been speculation all along. But just to point out that there was a Michaels craft store also in that vicinity.
BROWN: Michael, I'll let you go back and do some reporting on this, too, see who you can find in the law enforcement community, among your contacts within law enforcement, see if we can get any information.
Again, there has been another shooting. I'm not quite ready to confirm this yet, but the reports we have is that it was a woman who was shot. The shooting took place at a Home Depot outside Falls Church, Virginia. The team of CNN correspondents and producers, as you're well aware of, is working the story now. A lot of information in moments like this is flying about, and what we're going to do for the next half hour or more, depending, is as we get the pieces of it, we'll lay out what we know and we'll make it very clear when we're certain that we've been able to confirm it, and in some cases it is just observations of reporters who are trying to make their way there. We'll take a short break; our coverage continues in a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Police, reporters, everybody now is trying to get as much information about this 11th shooting -- this possible 11th shooting. Certainly much too early to confirm it. Kathleen Koch, who has become familiar with this story to most of you, she's been covering it since pretty much October 2 when it began, joins us again from Rockville, Maryland. Kathleen, what have you been able to put together?
KOCH: Aaron, right now we're sort of filling in the details. I spoke with Julie Hersey (ph), a spokesperson for the Fairfax County Police Department. She confirms that the initial call came in to them at 9:20 tonight in the parking lot of a Home Depot there in Fairfax County. She has confirmed that there is one woman who was shot. The police are not yet revealing the woman's condition.
Of the task force here in Montgomery County that has been responding now to all these sniper shootings, some 10 of them, and now this perhaps number 11, there are members of the sniper task force who are en route to the scene. At this point they say that Fairfax County Police will head up this investigation. But within likely roughly 24 hours, if and when they determine whether or not this is connected to the sniper shootings, then the task force itself will take over the investigation, an investigation, which, if this is indeed connected, would now be broadened to five counties and the District of Columbia -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just stay with me a bit. Guys, if you can put up the map again when you get a second, to put up the map again. Kathleen, you live out there and you know this area far better than I do. When you talk about the distance from, let's say, from where you are to where the incident took place tonight, how far is that from Rockville to Falls Church?
KOCH: I had a producer standing here with me who lives in that area; we were just discussing that. Brad Wright (ph), how far would you say we are right now from where the shooting took place?
BRAD WRIGHT (ph), CNN PRODUCER: Probably 20 miles.
KOCH: About 20 miles, Aaron. So it's not a great distance.
BROWN: And I'm just looking at the map now, the incident on Friday in Spotsylvania County, that's quite a bit farther away, correct?
KOCH: It is quite a bit farther away, and also police have found it extraordinarily interesting that it was also the previous Friday when a woman was shot, just outside a Michaels craft store, also in Spotsylvania County. That shooting occurring in the afternoon, leading to some degree of speculation as to whether the killer or killers has some reason to go to that area every Friday, travels south of Washington for the weekend. But, again, a very odd coincidence.
BROWN: Kathleen, let's let you go back to do some reporting here. Fairfax County Police, by the way, are now confirming that a woman has died in this incident at Falls Church, in Falls Church in Northern Virginia. They are not saying more than that at this point, but they are confirming that one person has died, a woman. Again, this incident, the first and that's the best -- in terms of nailing down when this happened, I think Kathleen gave us the best piece of information we have on that at this point that police got a call at about 9:20 Eastern time, so about an hour and 20 minutes ago, Eastern time, that there had been a shooting at a Home Depot, and now the police in Fairfax County are confirming that a woman has died in that attack.
And if it turns out that this attack is related to the others, that would be the ninth person to die -- two others wounded -- the ninth person to die since this all began, for whatever reasons this all began -- and far be it for me to know -- back on the 2nd of October.
We had gone through, all of us in the country, a weekend where nothing had happened, giving investigators some time to work through the information they had been gathering. At the briefing earlier today, Police Chief Moose was as upbeat -- if you can use that word, under the circumstances -- upbeat as we had heard him, assuring reporters and his constituents there that they had been making good progress. He didn't say what that progress was, but he did say they had made good progress.
Now that was -- that all seems like a very long time ago now. Now, we can't -- and just as we look at this, I'm not precisely sure and I gather most of you are not either what precisely we're looking at. Is that the -- you guys in the booth can help me here is that the shopping center in the distance there? OK.
In any case, the police chief indicated they had made good progress. They've been working on a second composite. You saw over the weekend, I'm sure, the composite, the picture really, of a truck -- looks like a sort of delivery truck -- that is one of the two vehicles that they had been looking for. And then the chief today talked about a second vehicle, more of a minivan sort of vehicle, also, white, as I recall it and they were going to do some sort of workup on -- some sort of workup on that. But we had not or at least if they issued that, I have not seen it.
Kathleen Koch is with us -- Kathleen.
KOCH: Aaron, police have been promising us they were working hard on that seconds composite graphic which would in many ways be similar to the one they put out Saturday night of the white box truck.
It would have the appearance of a picture, but it would be altered in such a way as to obscure the license and to indicate anything that would differentiate that white Astro Chevy van from any other Astro van. Apparently some witnesses at the scene said they had seen that it had ladders on the top or on the back or on the sides. But police are telling us they have a number of eyewitnesses to -- who saw that truck leaving the scene now that don't necessarily know it was involved, but that they think the occupants may have seen something. But I want to show that, that graphic representation to all of these witnesses, make sure they're very comfortable with it before they share it with the public, with us.
And again, the belief being that a picture is worth a thousand words and they really have had a flurry of phone calls and tips after they put out that graphic representation of the box truck Saturday.
BROWN: I'm sure you have asked these questions a hundred times. So let me ask you some of them. Do the police give you any idea how many witnesses claim to have seen, believed they saw either one truck or the other?
KOCH: They will tell us in the case of the Montgomery County shootings and the white box truck is was more than one witness at more than one shooting site. With the incident in Virginia they will only say more than one witness at that particular shooting site.
And, Aaron, they're being careful about what they share regarding the witnesses because they want people to feel comfortable to come forward, that their identities will be protected not only because they don't want to be besieged by members of the media. But also, if they're a witness to a sniper shooting, they might be in fear of their lives.
BROWN: Don't go anywhere, stay with me here. For people -- the picture you're looking at, in some ways -- talk about a picture beats a thousand words -- this gives you an idea of what police have done in the area. There is no ordinary traffic jam. They've shut down as far as we can see to the top of the screen the line of cars. It looks like perhaps three or four lanes wide, that line of cars...
KOCH: I'm listening to him.
BROWN: On the Capital Beltway is pretty much not moving or creeping along. And at the head of that and at other locations in the suburban Washington area, ahead of that, there are police roadblocks.
Ed Lavandera, who is one of our reporters working this tonight, in trying to make his way to the area, talked about the roadblocks that in place. That police are looking through cars, talking to the occupants of cars.
You know, it is not an unreasonable thing to say they hope to get lucky here. They hope that whoever did this, and whoever has been doing this -- assuming it is the same person -- whoever been doing this is caught up in that traffic somewhere and is not peeling off as we're seeing some of the cars and trucks able to do.
Again, the shooting tonight -- and we cannot yet confirm it is related to the others -- but we do know it is another fatality, took place in Falls Church in Northern Virginia. And you can see its proximity there to -- it is the red dot, I believe -- and you can see its proximity to the other shootings that have taken place in Prince William County and Montgomery County and that further to the south, which was the incident last Friday. There were no incidents over the weekend.
Kathleen, you were talking about the task force ultimately if this proves to be connected...
KOCH: Nineteen ninety what?
BROWN: ... will lead the investigation -- I hope you're able to hear me. Just run down who is in that task force what agencies are represented by that task force.
KOCH: Aaron, who we have involved in this task force is, of course, the Montgomery County Police Department. The site of where the first flurry of shootings occurred. We also have the FBI. We have the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. We have the Secret Service. And then all the various counties now where shootings have occurred. Prince William County, Prince George's County, Spotsylvania County, Washington, D.C. and, of course, Montgomery County. So all these people are members of the task force.
There was a meeting of law enforcement officials throughout the region, more than two dozen law enforcement officials with -- they wouldn't tell us if they went as far north as up into Pennsylvania, but this was back on Friday. Everyone being given the details on this case as much as they needed to know and planning advice on how to respond if something like this were to happen in their county.
BROWN: We're looking at -- I'm not sure, Kathleen, if you is a monitor there or not...
KOCH: I can see it.
BROWN: ... the scene of 495 and 95 at the Capital Beltway. It is just one area around the Capital that's been shut down. We're told the George Washington -- roadblocks have been set up, I'm not sure that shut down is the precise term. George Washington Parkway, the American Legion Bridge, Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Washington and suburban Washington areas.
Again the first report of this came in at 9:20 tonight. Employees who are working at the shopping center said customers ran into the stores, multiple stores, said they heard a single shot. We now know that one person was hit.
This is so frighteningly similar to every other one of these incidents where you have a single shot fired in most cases. Not all, but in most cases, fatality. All of them taking place in very public areas. People going about the most routine of tasks: filling up their car with gas, mowing the lawn, going now, it would appear, to a Home Depot in the suburban Washington area.
As we said a moment ago, the police chief in Montgomery County said earlier today, at the only briefing I believe they held today, that they felt they were make good progress. He didn't indicate why and in all honesty they have been -- the relationship between the police and the media has gotten a little -- a little tight over the past few days.
Police were not happy that someone leaked to a reporter late last week that a Tarot card had been found. In fact they were most unhappy that that had been leaked and that ultimately, not simply leaked, but, of course, reported. It is a two-way street in that regard.
And since that point, the relationship between the media and the police has been a little more strained. It is a relationship and it is a functioning relationship. But it is not perhaps as comfortable as either side would like it to be, particularly at a moment like this when you're trying to figure out what happened.
And I think that's, you know, the most important thing is to separate what is speculation or rumor or possibility from what is a fact. And I think the facts here are simple as we can report them in unpleasant as we do report them.
We have another victim, a woman has died after being shot at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia. Whether that shooting is related to the others in the area we cannot yet say. And won't be able to say until the ballistics work is done on that, assuming they're able to get a bullet and to do the testing that ATF would do.
Kathleen Koch.
KOCH: Aaron, the scene that we're watching here is eerily reminiscent of what we saw, obviously, Friday morning on 95 -- Highway I-95 running north and south between Washington D.C. and Richmond, Virginia, when the shooting occurred Friday.
And now we are hearing with this shooting, that occurred tonight, police are now pursuing a 1990 Dodge van. We don't know what color it is. But it was last seen driving east on Route 50. Hopefully now, again, as they have put this emergency action into effect where they have shut off every single highway route, that they are -- you know, that this van -- we're picking this up on scanners at this point, that this the van may be stuck in traffic and perhaps they will catch the perpetrator or perpetrators if they are indeed in this van. Though we don't know why they're looking for them, if it was indeed eyewitness or just seen leaving the scene very rapidly -- Aaron.
BROWN: Let me -- I want to parse your words a little bit. Are they searching for this van or are they pursuing this van?
KOCH: They're searching for the van at this point, Aaron. They have not seen it but, again, we don't know where this is coming from. We're hearing it from the scanners. But that they're looking for the van but they're not in pursuit at this point.
BROWN: OK, so they are searching for and, again, tell me the make and model.
KOCH: All we're hearing is a 1990 Dodge van, not a lot of details. Not the color, which would be most helpful. BROWN: And just -- you stay with me because you know this stuff backwards. That would be then the third vehicle that has made its way into the set of facts of this story. There's the white box-shaped truck. I don't know if we have a picture of that, that mostly I assume, most of you saw over the weekend.
And then this afternoon they started talking about a second vehicle, a van-like vehicle, an Astro, I think that's a Ford Astrovan. If it is not, I apologize to whoever makes it. And now they are looking for an older model, 1990, 1991 van, Chrysler van of some sort or another, that may or may not have anything to do with this. We don't know. But we know they're looking for it.
We know this much, that the incident tonight, if it is confirmed to be connected, will be the fifth county, the fifth different county where the sniper has struck. To this point, and many of you could repeat this along with me, each of the victims has been shot with a single bullet, a .223 caliber bullet. They believe that the shootings have taken place anywhere from 100 to 150 yards, perhaps longer.
Help me, guys, tell me what we're looking at, please. OK, this is the shopping center the area, thank you, where the shooting took place. Obviously, as we get these pictures in, we're putting them up so you can see what is going on as we see them and sometimes we just need to get a little information to help point you to what we're seeing.
You can see just looking at this though, I don't know if we can go back, if we have control over that, this is the shopping center also, but what we noticed there in the previous shot, it almost looked like a security camera shot. I don't think it was -- was police looking in cars, looking in every car in their parking lot, going through see if there is anything to be seen, anything to be found in that -- in the parking lot of that shopping center.
And the other thing we noticed and if we -- as we go back or when we go back, we'll see if I'm right, because let's look at this quickly, there are an awful lot of police officers there. Patty Davis of our Washington bureau, who was on the scene, and we talked to her on the phone a bit ago, said she believed well over 100 police officers were there.
That would not surprise us at all given the magnitude of what might have taken place there. The helicopters are all over the area and roads are blocked all over the area, all over the area as well.
Kathleen, when the chief, Chief Moose, briefed earlier today, he talked about optimistic signs. I don't think that's precisely what he -- were his words, but he said they made good progress. But no indication what that meant, correct?
KOCH: No, Aaron. He said he wasn't going to share with us the reason for his optimism and as you had pointed out earlier, the police in this case have been having fewer and fewer briefings every day. We're down to one briefing a day. And we reporters are unsure as to whether it's they don't want to share any information, such as -- not to jeopardize this case or if perhaps it is because of the growing belief that the killer or killers is watching these press conferences, these briefings and deriving some sort of satisfaction from them and perhaps this may be a new police tactic, to make all of this less rewarding, less fulfilling to the killer so that he or they might perhaps stop their killing spree.
But, if that was the point of cutting back on these press conferences, clearly if this is a connected shooting, it hasn't worked.
BROWN: Well, we don't blame them for doing that. That's perfectly appropriate, I guess, under the circumstances. Each side in these sorts of situations has a job to do and hopefully everybody goes about their task professionally.
Remember, when this began, asking Cliff Van Zandt, the former FBI profiler, if he thought the perpetrator or perpetrators was watching and he said, Absolutely. He, in his view, his profile of whoever is responsible for this, that this is someone who takes great satisfaction from the fact that police are stumped on the one hand, and that reporters and television networks are aggressively reporting this story, in some cases perhaps in the -- as Clint put it, in the perpetrator's view that he's holding everyone hostage to what he is doing.
We expect, I'm not sure when this will happen, that the chief of police in Fairfax County will deliver some sort of statement. What he will say beyond the fact that there has been another shooting and another fatality would be absolute speculation. There is no point in doing that.
But we'll stay with you. We expect that to happen reasonably soon. And we'll just stay with this for awhile. We're coming up on four minutes to 11:00 Western time. And we're not going anywhere. Obviously, as facts are starting to slowly fall into place.
The critical fact, I think, well let me just suggest there are two critical facts: the first of which is the most obvious who is doing this and we don't know. But they are searching for another van, the third van.
Beyond that, the thing that I think we most want to know now, as you look at the traffic backup on the Beltway in Washington, where these roadblocks have been set up, what we want to know now is whether or not this incident is connected to the others.
Eight people have already died. Two people have been seriously wounded. Another person, a woman, is now dead. Whether she is the ninth victim of this murderer, we do not yet know and probably will not know, probably will not know until sometime tomorrow when all the ballistics work is done. Obviously, and I know we're being repetitious, but we're trying to keep everybody on the same page as they join us here, coming up towards the top of the hour. There are a lot of reasons to see the connections.
A public place, for one. A single shot fired for another. There are other reasons to wonder. We won't go beyond wonder, but to wonder. Most of these incidents that have happened, as you look at another roadblock and, wow, I mean nothing is moving as the police go car to car, literally car to car, in hopes that they will find whoever is responsible for this. They need to find a bullet and then they need to test the bullet. And that will presumably, can't be certain, but presumably will show this is connected to the others or it is not.
And we expect, again, the police chief in Fairfax County, where this latest incident occurred, this latest shooting occurred, to brief reporters shortly. We'll bring you that as we get it. We are actually a little more quickly than I thought we might tonight, we are putting together a reasonable timeline of when this happened.
The shooting itself happened sometime around 9:20. The first police call, we believe, was received in Fairfax County at about 9:20. That squares with roughly how we heard the news as we were making our way up here tonight.
Police response, as you can see, is formidable right now, with road blocks set up in a variety of locations in linking in the kind of circle that goes around Washington D.C. and they are checking cars and checking the people in the cars and in hopes they'll find something.
They're also looking for a third vehicle. They were looking for the box truck, then the Ford Astro van and now there is a 1990 or 1991 Chryslver van, I think Kathleen said, that they are also looking for.
(CONTINUING COVERAGE OF BREAKING NEWS)
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