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American Morning

Interview with William Daly

Aired October 17, 2002 - 07:04   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: Are police making the right moves in their hunt for the sniper? What should they do next?
Joining us now with his assessment, a guy that knows, former FBI investigator William Daly.

Good to see you again.

WILLIAM DALY, FORMER FBI INVESTIGATOR: Hey, Paula.

ZAHN: First off, do you expect this sniper spree to continue? We've seen a little gap here now, thankfully.

DALY: Yes. Unfortunately, the pattern that we've seen here, and from the people who do this type of profiling, suggests that it will continue unless he's caught. It doesn't mean that it's going to be the same cadence that we've had before, where we can predict within a few days when it's going to happen.

But it is, unfortunately, one of those types of situations where once someone starts doing this, there's no magic number. And in fact, I believe that the media coverage and, you know, the excitement that this person draws from that, in addition to outsmarting the police or what he believes of outsmarting police, will support his continuance of this.

ZAHN: So, you really believe he feeds off of this coverage, and that helps guide his next move?

DALY: I don't know whether it guides his next move, but I believe that, you know, he's sitting at the end of the day, you know, or as soon as he leaves the scene, and is watching the helicopters and the police arrive, and the coverage that ensues afterwards, and sees that the police are, you know, questioning people, they're trying to come up with leads. And I believe that this is fostering, you know, him to continue, but also live (ph) somewhat vicariously to this.

ZAHN: And this, of course, affects what police choose to tell the media, or not tell the media. How do you think they are in striking the balance there? I mean, do you think they know a heck of a lot more at this point than they're willing to share?

DALY: Oh, I believe so. And I would just also say to people that even though they don't have a description, a composite of this individual yet, is that there are a lot of other factors that I believe they have in place, and they're working intensely into this investigation. They will find out who it is. Unfortunately, this is not a 60 minute, you know, melodrama. This is not a miniseries. It will take a while. It may be next week, it may be the week after, it could be tomorrow, but we will find out who it is.

ZAHN: What do you really think they have right now? I mean, we've heard about the description of a partial license plate reading of a Maryland plate. Do you think they've got more than that?

DALY: Well, I think that there's more that's come from the crime scenes that they aren't giving us, which is good. I think that that's important that a lot of police information be held, you know, within those ranks.

I also think that some of the information coming from the public at large, even as voluminous as it is, will be of assistance, and we'll start to connect some of those dots. I believe it comes from several sides. It comes from the information from the public, their forensic examination, and I believe those together, as well as potentially just the good police work of maybe being in the right place at the right time, will go a long way to solving this.

ZAHN: There continues to be speculation in this morning's newspapers about the potential for this guy -- and I guess that's about all we know at this point, we know that a man is involved -- that there could be terrorist connections. And we know Tom Ridge, over the weekend, said you can't rule that out. What do you think?

DALY: Well, I mean, I think that's exactly right. You can't rule it out, but I don't believe it's being ruled in at this point; otherwise, we would have seen a different type of police effort. We would have seen the Joint Terrorism Task Force, we would have seen the federal authorities assuming control of this.

Right now, this is a state, a capital offense. It's a murder investigation being supported by federal law enforcement agencies, because they have resources and they have facilities to be able to assist local law enforcement. But if it was something where we believed that it was terrorist-connected, it would be a different type of investigation.

It's not to say at the end of the day, Paula, that whoever they catch, all of a sudden says they have certain leanings, or they're a self-proclaimed terrorist or what have you, but I don't believe there's anything right now that suggests to us that this is influenced by an international terrorist group.

ZAHN: Being that you're an FBI lifer, help us better understand what it's like for the FBI agent now who's up in one of those monitoring planes that the Department of Defense is providing, given the fact that the Department of Defense can't be actively involved in this investigation because of the Posse Comitatus rules.

So, what, the agent is taking notes? And I guess now they're saying they could cut reaction time from three minutes to within a minute. They can trace what? They can actually trace the thermal... DALY: The thermal imagery or the muzzle fire from the weapon. I believe that's how they're doing it.

But actually, I think what we're talking about here is a cooperative effort. It's not the first time that the military has allowed agencies to use their resources. There have been investigations overseas into the bombings of the embassies where the military has supported law enforcement.

This certainly is that fine line, and we have to be very, very keen to observe what that is. It was passed, you know, over a century ago, and it was meant to keep the military from being involved in civil investigations and operations. And that's the way we like it in this country.

But at times, we do need to call on resources that they have that just the federal government and local governments don't have a need for all the time. And then, maybe just some resource, some technology, that could be used to bring closure to this and save lives.

ZAHN: Bill Daly, appreciate your insights this morning.

DALY: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Good of you to drop by.

DALY: Thank you.

ZAHN: I haven't seen you in a couple of months. Come back more often, but hopefully, not to talk about a story like this.

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 17, 2002 - 07:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Are police making the right moves in their hunt for the sniper? What should they do next?
Joining us now with his assessment, a guy that knows, former FBI investigator William Daly.

Good to see you again.

WILLIAM DALY, FORMER FBI INVESTIGATOR: Hey, Paula.

ZAHN: First off, do you expect this sniper spree to continue? We've seen a little gap here now, thankfully.

DALY: Yes. Unfortunately, the pattern that we've seen here, and from the people who do this type of profiling, suggests that it will continue unless he's caught. It doesn't mean that it's going to be the same cadence that we've had before, where we can predict within a few days when it's going to happen.

But it is, unfortunately, one of those types of situations where once someone starts doing this, there's no magic number. And in fact, I believe that the media coverage and, you know, the excitement that this person draws from that, in addition to outsmarting the police or what he believes of outsmarting police, will support his continuance of this.

ZAHN: So, you really believe he feeds off of this coverage, and that helps guide his next move?

DALY: I don't know whether it guides his next move, but I believe that, you know, he's sitting at the end of the day, you know, or as soon as he leaves the scene, and is watching the helicopters and the police arrive, and the coverage that ensues afterwards, and sees that the police are, you know, questioning people, they're trying to come up with leads. And I believe that this is fostering, you know, him to continue, but also live (ph) somewhat vicariously to this.

ZAHN: And this, of course, affects what police choose to tell the media, or not tell the media. How do you think they are in striking the balance there? I mean, do you think they know a heck of a lot more at this point than they're willing to share?

DALY: Oh, I believe so. And I would just also say to people that even though they don't have a description, a composite of this individual yet, is that there are a lot of other factors that I believe they have in place, and they're working intensely into this investigation. They will find out who it is. Unfortunately, this is not a 60 minute, you know, melodrama. This is not a miniseries. It will take a while. It may be next week, it may be the week after, it could be tomorrow, but we will find out who it is.

ZAHN: What do you really think they have right now? I mean, we've heard about the description of a partial license plate reading of a Maryland plate. Do you think they've got more than that?

DALY: Well, I think that there's more that's come from the crime scenes that they aren't giving us, which is good. I think that that's important that a lot of police information be held, you know, within those ranks.

I also think that some of the information coming from the public at large, even as voluminous as it is, will be of assistance, and we'll start to connect some of those dots. I believe it comes from several sides. It comes from the information from the public, their forensic examination, and I believe those together, as well as potentially just the good police work of maybe being in the right place at the right time, will go a long way to solving this.

ZAHN: There continues to be speculation in this morning's newspapers about the potential for this guy -- and I guess that's about all we know at this point, we know that a man is involved -- that there could be terrorist connections. And we know Tom Ridge, over the weekend, said you can't rule that out. What do you think?

DALY: Well, I mean, I think that's exactly right. You can't rule it out, but I don't believe it's being ruled in at this point; otherwise, we would have seen a different type of police effort. We would have seen the Joint Terrorism Task Force, we would have seen the federal authorities assuming control of this.

Right now, this is a state, a capital offense. It's a murder investigation being supported by federal law enforcement agencies, because they have resources and they have facilities to be able to assist local law enforcement. But if it was something where we believed that it was terrorist-connected, it would be a different type of investigation.

It's not to say at the end of the day, Paula, that whoever they catch, all of a sudden says they have certain leanings, or they're a self-proclaimed terrorist or what have you, but I don't believe there's anything right now that suggests to us that this is influenced by an international terrorist group.

ZAHN: Being that you're an FBI lifer, help us better understand what it's like for the FBI agent now who's up in one of those monitoring planes that the Department of Defense is providing, given the fact that the Department of Defense can't be actively involved in this investigation because of the Posse Comitatus rules.

So, what, the agent is taking notes? And I guess now they're saying they could cut reaction time from three minutes to within a minute. They can trace what? They can actually trace the thermal... DALY: The thermal imagery or the muzzle fire from the weapon. I believe that's how they're doing it.

But actually, I think what we're talking about here is a cooperative effort. It's not the first time that the military has allowed agencies to use their resources. There have been investigations overseas into the bombings of the embassies where the military has supported law enforcement.

This certainly is that fine line, and we have to be very, very keen to observe what that is. It was passed, you know, over a century ago, and it was meant to keep the military from being involved in civil investigations and operations. And that's the way we like it in this country.

But at times, we do need to call on resources that they have that just the federal government and local governments don't have a need for all the time. And then, maybe just some resource, some technology, that could be used to bring closure to this and save lives.

ZAHN: Bill Daly, appreciate your insights this morning.

DALY: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Good of you to drop by.

DALY: Thank you.

ZAHN: I haven't seen you in a couple of months. Come back more often, but hopefully, not to talk about a story like this.

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