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American Morning
Interview with Charles Moose
Aired October 08, 2002 - 08:03 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to that story out of the D.C. suburbs, Bill. Police this morning are calling for some more federal help in the hunt for a sniper who is terrorizing the Washington area. Eight people have been shot since Wednesday in two Maryland counties, Virginia and Washington. Six of them have died.
Parents in Bowie, Maryland are being asked to closely watch their children after a 13-year-old boy was wounded yesterday just after being dropped off at school. What else are police telling residents to do to stay safe?
Joining us now, Charles Moose, chief of the Montgomery County Police Department.
Good morning, sir.
Thank you very much for being with us.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Good morning.
ZAHN: Are you any closer to having a suspect this morning?
MOOSE: Well, I think certainly we continue to work extremely hard. Close is really, in some terms, relative. We're doing everything possible. The science continues to assist us. The investigators, just our skilled investigators are working very hard. And somehow we feel like we are going to remain aggressive in this matter.
ZAHN: There are a number of folks in the law enforcement community who have said they believe this gunman is killing for sport. Is that the way you view this spree?
MOOSE: It really has been my goal and desire to not really participate in name calling or categorizing. We want our investigators to be very diligent. We want people to keep an open mind. We want to make sure that we don't focus in and get tunnel vision. I just want to be very professional. And a lot of the talking heads, a lot of the different things that people are saying, we just need to ignore that and continue to follow the trail until we can bring this person or these people into custody.
ZAHN: But, Chief, help us understand the challenge you face every day in deciding what to share with the public. There are those who feel when you try to reassure parents that their kids would be safe at school that, in fact, this killer might have seen that as a challenge. MOOSE: Well, certainly anything is possible and we can speculate. We are very disturbed that someone would hunt down a child deliberately, as we experienced yesterday. But, again, people are concerned. We will continue to try to assure our community. There are many, many targets in the Washington metropolitan area. We know that. We've always known that. Our job is to assure our community. Our children are always so helpless, and, yes, we have always focused on their safety and we will always continue to do so. We're obligated as adults to do that.
ZAHN: Let's come back to the point you just made that surely there are other targets. Does there seem to be a pattern emerging here? I know Jeanne Meserve, our correspondent, asked you earlier this morning that these shootings have happened, some of them, on weekday mornings. Can you glean a pattern here?
MOOSE: Really, at this point I can just tell you that all of the people have been innocent. All of the people have been defenseless. It just is mean-spirited. It doesn't make any sense. It's very, very evil.
ZAHN: And it's also true that all the victims were either standing alone or sitting alone, right?
MOOSE: That is correct.
ZAHN: So what is the best advice you can offer parents today who obviously have a great deal of fear and ambivalence about returning their kids to school in Prince Georges County and Montgomery County?
MOOSE: Yes, ma'am, and I think the message remains the same, that we have to engage with our children. There is a lot of hate, there is a lot of crime, there is a lot of violence that our children face, not only in this community, but throughout America, and not only because of this event, but past events. And actually there'll probably be future tragedies into the future. So we need to engage our kids, try to explain that, help them make good decisions, but recognize that we continue to need to go forward.
And most importantly, I hope the parents and the community will continue to talk to law enforcement, tell us what they're seeing, be observant. If they know someone that is acting strangely, that is not keeping their schedule, that may have somehow dropped out of their daily routine, we want to talk to them about that. We want to follow up on that lead.
Public safety, law enforcement works best when the police and the community work together. And if nothing else comes out of this, here's another tremendous opportunity for the police and the community to work together to make things better.
ZAHN: Finally, very quickly in closing, I know you also have the help of the FBI and ATF. How much more help do you need right now?
MOOSE: We're going to continue to ask for as much help as we need. And I want to stress that it's not only those two major agencies, but we've gotten help from the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals, everyone in federal government, all of our local law enforcement partners. Certainly now we're bringing in the U.S. attorney's office to expedite some of our search warrant efforts.
So the whole team has been brought to bear and we're very fortunate that everyone in the food chain has said yes. They've enthusiastically said yes. And so I feel good that we will not have a resource issue as we work to solve this very terrible crime.
ZAHN: Chief Moose, our hearts go out to you as your community is so gripped with terror right now. Best of luck to you and all of the folks that are helping with this investigation.
MOOSE: Yes, ma'am, thank you. And if you could have us in your prayers, it would be very, very blessed, very supportive.
ZAHN: I think they're already there in millions of people this morning.
Thank you for your time this morning.
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 8, 2002 - 08:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to that story out of the D.C. suburbs, Bill. Police this morning are calling for some more federal help in the hunt for a sniper who is terrorizing the Washington area. Eight people have been shot since Wednesday in two Maryland counties, Virginia and Washington. Six of them have died.
Parents in Bowie, Maryland are being asked to closely watch their children after a 13-year-old boy was wounded yesterday just after being dropped off at school. What else are police telling residents to do to stay safe?
Joining us now, Charles Moose, chief of the Montgomery County Police Department.
Good morning, sir.
Thank you very much for being with us.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Good morning.
ZAHN: Are you any closer to having a suspect this morning?
MOOSE: Well, I think certainly we continue to work extremely hard. Close is really, in some terms, relative. We're doing everything possible. The science continues to assist us. The investigators, just our skilled investigators are working very hard. And somehow we feel like we are going to remain aggressive in this matter.
ZAHN: There are a number of folks in the law enforcement community who have said they believe this gunman is killing for sport. Is that the way you view this spree?
MOOSE: It really has been my goal and desire to not really participate in name calling or categorizing. We want our investigators to be very diligent. We want people to keep an open mind. We want to make sure that we don't focus in and get tunnel vision. I just want to be very professional. And a lot of the talking heads, a lot of the different things that people are saying, we just need to ignore that and continue to follow the trail until we can bring this person or these people into custody.
ZAHN: But, Chief, help us understand the challenge you face every day in deciding what to share with the public. There are those who feel when you try to reassure parents that their kids would be safe at school that, in fact, this killer might have seen that as a challenge. MOOSE: Well, certainly anything is possible and we can speculate. We are very disturbed that someone would hunt down a child deliberately, as we experienced yesterday. But, again, people are concerned. We will continue to try to assure our community. There are many, many targets in the Washington metropolitan area. We know that. We've always known that. Our job is to assure our community. Our children are always so helpless, and, yes, we have always focused on their safety and we will always continue to do so. We're obligated as adults to do that.
ZAHN: Let's come back to the point you just made that surely there are other targets. Does there seem to be a pattern emerging here? I know Jeanne Meserve, our correspondent, asked you earlier this morning that these shootings have happened, some of them, on weekday mornings. Can you glean a pattern here?
MOOSE: Really, at this point I can just tell you that all of the people have been innocent. All of the people have been defenseless. It just is mean-spirited. It doesn't make any sense. It's very, very evil.
ZAHN: And it's also true that all the victims were either standing alone or sitting alone, right?
MOOSE: That is correct.
ZAHN: So what is the best advice you can offer parents today who obviously have a great deal of fear and ambivalence about returning their kids to school in Prince Georges County and Montgomery County?
MOOSE: Yes, ma'am, and I think the message remains the same, that we have to engage with our children. There is a lot of hate, there is a lot of crime, there is a lot of violence that our children face, not only in this community, but throughout America, and not only because of this event, but past events. And actually there'll probably be future tragedies into the future. So we need to engage our kids, try to explain that, help them make good decisions, but recognize that we continue to need to go forward.
And most importantly, I hope the parents and the community will continue to talk to law enforcement, tell us what they're seeing, be observant. If they know someone that is acting strangely, that is not keeping their schedule, that may have somehow dropped out of their daily routine, we want to talk to them about that. We want to follow up on that lead.
Public safety, law enforcement works best when the police and the community work together. And if nothing else comes out of this, here's another tremendous opportunity for the police and the community to work together to make things better.
ZAHN: Finally, very quickly in closing, I know you also have the help of the FBI and ATF. How much more help do you need right now?
MOOSE: We're going to continue to ask for as much help as we need. And I want to stress that it's not only those two major agencies, but we've gotten help from the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals, everyone in federal government, all of our local law enforcement partners. Certainly now we're bringing in the U.S. attorney's office to expedite some of our search warrant efforts.
So the whole team has been brought to bear and we're very fortunate that everyone in the food chain has said yes. They've enthusiastically said yes. And so I feel good that we will not have a resource issue as we work to solve this very terrible crime.
ZAHN: Chief Moose, our hearts go out to you as your community is so gripped with terror right now. Best of luck to you and all of the folks that are helping with this investigation.
MOOSE: Yes, ma'am, thank you. And if you could have us in your prayers, it would be very, very blessed, very supportive.
ZAHN: I think they're already there in millions of people this morning.
Thank you for your time this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
