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American Morning

Interview With Douglas Duncan

Aired October 07, 2002 - 07:15   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: With no strong leads and no suspect, police investigators, right now, hoping that a geographic profile will help lead them to the sniper who has killed six people throughout the area of Washington, D.C. The profile designed to help narrow the search area.
The fatal shootings -- five in Montgomery County, Maryland and one in Washington last week -- appear to be random. The wounding of a woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia also has been linked to the sniper through ballistics testing.

Police are telling residents, once again today, to be careful. But just how are they going about their lives this morning?

Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan joins us live from Rockville, Maryland with us.

Sir, good to see you this morning.

DOUGLAS DUNCAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY EXECUTIVE: Good morning.

HEMMER: Before we get to what you're telling the folks who live there, I listened to the briefing about 45 minutes ago. You have a geographic profile, but outside of that, there does not appear to be much upon which you are working. Does that indicate right now that, once again, you're at a dead end on this?

DUNCAN: No, we've got some very active leads going on. The public has been great about calling in and giving us any information they think might be helpful. We've got close to a thousand different leads that we are tracking down and pursuing. And, we're getting help from the federal agencies.

So, we've got the geographic profile, which helps us narrow down these leads and prioritize them, and the personality profilers working from the FBI with our investigators, again, helps us to narrow things down and to help prioritize the leads that we have.

HEMMER: And what are you hearing...

DUNCAN: So, we're working very hard here...

HEMMER: I apologize for the interruption. What are you hearing from the people in your community? And what are you telling them?

DUNCAN: Well, people are very fearful. We've got someone using sniper-like techniques shooting people at random, and it's a very fearful, a very anxious time here. We had a quiet weekend, but now, we're back in the work week. Kids are back at school. People are very nervous, but we are asking them, as best they can, to go about their normal routines. We can't stay locked inside our homes or our places of work.

So, what we're doing to help is we've got a massive police presence on the streets of the country with the Montgomery County Police, the Maryland State Police. A lot of other law enforcement agencies are here, providing that police presence on the streets in addition to the massive manhunt that's going on as well.

HEMMER: There was a report from the weekend that said, a woman said her husband has been missing for days, essentially. After looking into it, there was another report that followed up and said, this was a man who had owned a rifle similar to one that was shown at the end of last week.

Are you in hot pursuit right now of this man?

DUNCAN: The man is no longer missing. He has been found. He has been talked to by our police. The weapon has been accounted for. It has nothing to do with what we're looking for here.

HEMMER: So, he checked out, then.

DUNCAN: That was a lead. We tracked that down, and now, we're moving on to other ones.

HEMMER: Douglas Duncan, Montgomery County Executive -- thanks. Best of luck to you, OK? I know you folks need it again as you start another week here.

DUNCAN: It's going to be a tough day here. We've got two funerals today for the victims, and we're just going to keep moving on and keep helping this community get together. Thank you.

HEMMER: Hang in there. Thanks again.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired October 7, 2002 - 07:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: With no strong leads and no suspect, police investigators, right now, hoping that a geographic profile will help lead them to the sniper who has killed six people throughout the area of Washington, D.C. The profile designed to help narrow the search area.
The fatal shootings -- five in Montgomery County, Maryland and one in Washington last week -- appear to be random. The wounding of a woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia also has been linked to the sniper through ballistics testing.

Police are telling residents, once again today, to be careful. But just how are they going about their lives this morning?

Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan joins us live from Rockville, Maryland with us.

Sir, good to see you this morning.

DOUGLAS DUNCAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY EXECUTIVE: Good morning.

HEMMER: Before we get to what you're telling the folks who live there, I listened to the briefing about 45 minutes ago. You have a geographic profile, but outside of that, there does not appear to be much upon which you are working. Does that indicate right now that, once again, you're at a dead end on this?

DUNCAN: No, we've got some very active leads going on. The public has been great about calling in and giving us any information they think might be helpful. We've got close to a thousand different leads that we are tracking down and pursuing. And, we're getting help from the federal agencies.

So, we've got the geographic profile, which helps us narrow down these leads and prioritize them, and the personality profilers working from the FBI with our investigators, again, helps us to narrow things down and to help prioritize the leads that we have.

HEMMER: And what are you hearing...

DUNCAN: So, we're working very hard here...

HEMMER: I apologize for the interruption. What are you hearing from the people in your community? And what are you telling them?

DUNCAN: Well, people are very fearful. We've got someone using sniper-like techniques shooting people at random, and it's a very fearful, a very anxious time here. We had a quiet weekend, but now, we're back in the work week. Kids are back at school. People are very nervous, but we are asking them, as best they can, to go about their normal routines. We can't stay locked inside our homes or our places of work.

So, what we're doing to help is we've got a massive police presence on the streets of the country with the Montgomery County Police, the Maryland State Police. A lot of other law enforcement agencies are here, providing that police presence on the streets in addition to the massive manhunt that's going on as well.

HEMMER: There was a report from the weekend that said, a woman said her husband has been missing for days, essentially. After looking into it, there was another report that followed up and said, this was a man who had owned a rifle similar to one that was shown at the end of last week.

Are you in hot pursuit right now of this man?

DUNCAN: The man is no longer missing. He has been found. He has been talked to by our police. The weapon has been accounted for. It has nothing to do with what we're looking for here.

HEMMER: So, he checked out, then.

DUNCAN: That was a lead. We tracked that down, and now, we're moving on to other ones.

HEMMER: Douglas Duncan, Montgomery County Executive -- thanks. Best of luck to you, OK? I know you folks need it again as you start another week here.

DUNCAN: It's going to be a tough day here. We've got two funerals today for the victims, and we're just going to keep moving on and keep helping this community get together. Thank you.

HEMMER: Hang in there. Thanks again.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.