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American Morning

Why Would Someone Give a False Lead?

Aired October 18, 2002 - 08:04   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: One other quick note here, Paula. On Tuesday afternoon, that ridge across from the parking lot was not marked off by police tape. At that point, anyway, it was not part of the investigation. Going back there yesterday, it was, police tape keeping the public out from that area. It is possible, once again, the shots may have come from there.
Talking with police investigators on the scene, I asked them quite specifically, are you considering the fact that this woman was shot from a distance greater than 30 yards? And the woman told me point blank if we knew that for a fact we would not be here still investigating. But, indeed, they were yesterday -- Paula, more in a moment here in Rockville.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Too bad.

Thanks, Bill.

Details about the sniper, a vehicle and the weapon used in the latest attack, precious information police have been desperately hoping for. But as Bill has just told you, it turns out the so-called witness who supplied those details was lying. He could now face charges.

Why would someone lie and how do police deal with that?

Bo Dietl is a former New York homicide detective. He's been there himself.

You've chased a number of false leads in your life. Why would someone make up this story?

BO DIETL, EX-NYPD HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: Well, it's the biggest story in the papers, on TV. They want to put themselves into the story. We had the Palm Sunday massacre here in New York City, 10 people killed, eight children. One guy had me running around, I picked up the phone call. He knew who the killer was, he wanted to let me know, he was afraid for his life. He had me going to a phone booth on Nostrand Avenue. The phone would ring, he had me go to another phone. This guy did it for four days until finally we got him to come in and we had to interrogate him for about four hours then he finally said look it, I want to go home, I was only kidding.

My lieutenant at that time, Harvey Holman (ph), grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall. You had detectives out there for a week running around all over Brooklyn because you thought it was a joke and you want to insert yourself into the story? You know, this is crazy -- it's criminal, as far as I'm concerned. They should arrest them for false reporting.

ZAHN: Well, they certainly are thinking about charging him with something. It's not clear to what extent the reward may have motivated them. I guess they're going to try to figure that all out.

What do you think this has cost investigators?

DIETL: Well, it costs direction. And as soon as I knew that they didn't put that composite out -- because you can put a composite together within two hours -- if there was any credibility of any of the witnesses, that composite would have went right out. But when you have three different eyewitnesses' accounts completely different, and when I heard the olive skinned Hispanic, Middle Eastern, you know, something twitched in my head saying that, you know something? They're going to be steering them in the wrong direction here, because some people saw him as maybe a white male, a white-skinned male.

You've got to take these cases and you've really got to disseminate the information, look for the credibility of the witness. And it's so hard. And everyone's like yearning for something.

The only problem also is the releasing. Hey, we were having four news conferences a day saying nothing in the beginning. That was not, I don't think that was too good. What you should do is have a news conference when you want to release important information to people. You don't release that you're going to shut down the interstates because the sniper or snipers -- which I believe there's two -- what they'll do is say we won't take the interstate, we'll take a side road.

Hey, we've got now a radar plane running around. They're telling the sniper -- and let's not call him a sniper. Let's call him a homicidal murderer. That's exactly what it is. They're giving him all the information.

ZAHN: So you feel that this distraction of this guy telling false stories has cost them direction. But how much of an advantage has this given to the sniper?

DIETL: Well, what's happening is the sniper is watching TV. He might be watching us right now. And he's learning everything that's being done. And to him it's a big joke now. When it, if he's a white male and you're saying that he has olive skin, he's saying they don't have any clue about me right now. And it's just building him up.

The other thing is you have to look at the area he's in. He's staying in that same geographical area. Everyone's saying now al Qaeda and all that. But just think about it, if it was al Qaeda, terrorism. What is terrorism? Fear. You would put so much fear into people if you took credit for it. You're not taking credit, you're not getting the bang for your buck. I mean you've killed enough people to make people fear.

Also, New York, Washington, Miami, just imagine if someone gets hit, bing, bing, bing. This whole country at that time would be frozen up. This person knows the geographical area, lives in that geographical area and my theory still stands. After Columbine, there was the investigation that was done. There were three other cases that are documented where they had children who were -- children, adolescents that played these silent scope video games, these psychopathic video games where you shoot people. They went on to commit mass murder after that for a body count.

To me, this is a sick game. They're hitting people, man, woman, black, white, Indian, children. You've got to look at the motive. Whenever you investigate a homicide, you look at the motive, the means and the opportunity. Here the motive...

ZAHN: What's tell me motive here when you look at the...

DIETL: The motive...

ZAHN: ... range of victims, their ages and the races?

DIETL: The motive, remember on October 3, four people were killed in a matter of two hours. One person killed whatever sick rush they get. Two people killed, that's a rush. But to go to four I felt as though one person was pushing the other person to discharge. Oh, you got him, you got a head shot. I didn't get a head shot.

It's a sick game, is what I believe. When you can tell me another motive, you have to show me one.

ZAHN: Are you talking about two separate players working in tandem...

DIETL: I'm talking about...

ZAHN: ... or two separate...

DIETL: I'm talking about two people involved. I don't know if one's a stronger personality than the other one. But there's two -- my feelings are to push someone to kill four people in a matter of two hours, then they went and got the fifth person at nine o'clock at night, something is pushing the other person. And these people -- people, these young kids, they get involved with these video games and they become, they think that they become this great sniper. Now they go out to try it in reality.

It's just a feeling that I have. I might be wrong. I might be right. But there's a motive behind that body count, get the body count. And when they interviewed these kids in these mass shootings, they said they wanted to get the body count up.

ZAHN: A chilling thought to end on, but we do have to end the segment.

Bo Dietl, as always. It's good to see you.

DIETL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by.

DIETL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Appreciate 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 18, 2002 - 08:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: One other quick note here, Paula. On Tuesday afternoon, that ridge across from the parking lot was not marked off by police tape. At that point, anyway, it was not part of the investigation. Going back there yesterday, it was, police tape keeping the public out from that area. It is possible, once again, the shots may have come from there.
Talking with police investigators on the scene, I asked them quite specifically, are you considering the fact that this woman was shot from a distance greater than 30 yards? And the woman told me point blank if we knew that for a fact we would not be here still investigating. But, indeed, they were yesterday -- Paula, more in a moment here in Rockville.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Too bad.

Thanks, Bill.

Details about the sniper, a vehicle and the weapon used in the latest attack, precious information police have been desperately hoping for. But as Bill has just told you, it turns out the so-called witness who supplied those details was lying. He could now face charges.

Why would someone lie and how do police deal with that?

Bo Dietl is a former New York homicide detective. He's been there himself.

You've chased a number of false leads in your life. Why would someone make up this story?

BO DIETL, EX-NYPD HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: Well, it's the biggest story in the papers, on TV. They want to put themselves into the story. We had the Palm Sunday massacre here in New York City, 10 people killed, eight children. One guy had me running around, I picked up the phone call. He knew who the killer was, he wanted to let me know, he was afraid for his life. He had me going to a phone booth on Nostrand Avenue. The phone would ring, he had me go to another phone. This guy did it for four days until finally we got him to come in and we had to interrogate him for about four hours then he finally said look it, I want to go home, I was only kidding.

My lieutenant at that time, Harvey Holman (ph), grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall. You had detectives out there for a week running around all over Brooklyn because you thought it was a joke and you want to insert yourself into the story? You know, this is crazy -- it's criminal, as far as I'm concerned. They should arrest them for false reporting.

ZAHN: Well, they certainly are thinking about charging him with something. It's not clear to what extent the reward may have motivated them. I guess they're going to try to figure that all out.

What do you think this has cost investigators?

DIETL: Well, it costs direction. And as soon as I knew that they didn't put that composite out -- because you can put a composite together within two hours -- if there was any credibility of any of the witnesses, that composite would have went right out. But when you have three different eyewitnesses' accounts completely different, and when I heard the olive skinned Hispanic, Middle Eastern, you know, something twitched in my head saying that, you know something? They're going to be steering them in the wrong direction here, because some people saw him as maybe a white male, a white-skinned male.

You've got to take these cases and you've really got to disseminate the information, look for the credibility of the witness. And it's so hard. And everyone's like yearning for something.

The only problem also is the releasing. Hey, we were having four news conferences a day saying nothing in the beginning. That was not, I don't think that was too good. What you should do is have a news conference when you want to release important information to people. You don't release that you're going to shut down the interstates because the sniper or snipers -- which I believe there's two -- what they'll do is say we won't take the interstate, we'll take a side road.

Hey, we've got now a radar plane running around. They're telling the sniper -- and let's not call him a sniper. Let's call him a homicidal murderer. That's exactly what it is. They're giving him all the information.

ZAHN: So you feel that this distraction of this guy telling false stories has cost them direction. But how much of an advantage has this given to the sniper?

DIETL: Well, what's happening is the sniper is watching TV. He might be watching us right now. And he's learning everything that's being done. And to him it's a big joke now. When it, if he's a white male and you're saying that he has olive skin, he's saying they don't have any clue about me right now. And it's just building him up.

The other thing is you have to look at the area he's in. He's staying in that same geographical area. Everyone's saying now al Qaeda and all that. But just think about it, if it was al Qaeda, terrorism. What is terrorism? Fear. You would put so much fear into people if you took credit for it. You're not taking credit, you're not getting the bang for your buck. I mean you've killed enough people to make people fear.

Also, New York, Washington, Miami, just imagine if someone gets hit, bing, bing, bing. This whole country at that time would be frozen up. This person knows the geographical area, lives in that geographical area and my theory still stands. After Columbine, there was the investigation that was done. There were three other cases that are documented where they had children who were -- children, adolescents that played these silent scope video games, these psychopathic video games where you shoot people. They went on to commit mass murder after that for a body count.

To me, this is a sick game. They're hitting people, man, woman, black, white, Indian, children. You've got to look at the motive. Whenever you investigate a homicide, you look at the motive, the means and the opportunity. Here the motive...

ZAHN: What's tell me motive here when you look at the...

DIETL: The motive...

ZAHN: ... range of victims, their ages and the races?

DIETL: The motive, remember on October 3, four people were killed in a matter of two hours. One person killed whatever sick rush they get. Two people killed, that's a rush. But to go to four I felt as though one person was pushing the other person to discharge. Oh, you got him, you got a head shot. I didn't get a head shot.

It's a sick game, is what I believe. When you can tell me another motive, you have to show me one.

ZAHN: Are you talking about two separate players working in tandem...

DIETL: I'm talking about...

ZAHN: ... or two separate...

DIETL: I'm talking about two people involved. I don't know if one's a stronger personality than the other one. But there's two -- my feelings are to push someone to kill four people in a matter of two hours, then they went and got the fifth person at nine o'clock at night, something is pushing the other person. And these people -- people, these young kids, they get involved with these video games and they become, they think that they become this great sniper. Now they go out to try it in reality.

It's just a feeling that I have. I might be wrong. I might be right. But there's a motive behind that body count, get the body count. And when they interviewed these kids in these mass shootings, they said they wanted to get the body count up.

ZAHN: A chilling thought to end on, but we do have to end the segment.

Bo Dietl, as always. It's good to see you.

DIETL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by.

DIETL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Appreciate 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