Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
Sniper on the Loose, Part V
Aired October 20, 2002 - 11:32 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The latest suspected sniper victim is now clinging to life at a Richmond, Virginia hospital. However, his case has not been linked to the string of shootings that have taken place so far in the Washington, D.C. area. We'll have the latest on that, and we're now going to be joining with Carol Costello, who is in Montgomery County, Maryland, for the latest on the overall investigation -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I wish we had a lot more to tell you, Fredricka, but we still are awaiting that news conference to begin in Ashland, Virginia. It was supposed to begin in about two hours ago now, but a teleconference between investigators from different jurisdictions took longer than expected, and I would suspect police want to be on the same page before that press conference finally begins.
Now, we understand the news conference out of Ashland, Virginia, will be led by local authorities there, because as Fredricka just said, this sniper attack or this shooting has not been officially tied to the sniper attack, and until it is, it will not come under Montgomery County's jurisdiction.
You know, you talk about the anxiety levels here in the Washington area, and they are certainly high. CNN aired a special last night with Anderson Cooper and Daryn Kagan, our own Gary Tuchman, and they talked about how the atmosphere has changed here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... about 50 miles from the scene where it was backed up for about three or four miles with cars being pulled over by members of the police.
That was interesting and notable that it was so far from the scene selected area.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And have you seen any roadblocks since that roadblock 30 miles past?
TUCHMAN: We haven't seen any roadblocks, but we have seen a smattering of police cars with their flashing lights on, sitting on the shoulders of the road, perhaps awaiting orders. Either way, they're sitting there waiting for something.
COOPER: And what do you plan to do as soon as you get to the scene? I mean, what... TUCHMAN: Well, we're hoping to question any possible witnesses who were on the scene. We're hoping to talk to authorities who might be on the scene. They have set up a media staging area for us to be at when we get there, but obviously, Daryn was just pointing this out, things have changed so much in this region of the country.
I was just listening to a local radio announcer talking about the World Series game tonight. And he goes and that's happening really far away. And he didn't just mean geographically. He meant in a spiritual sense, how life perhaps in California right now is a lot more carefree than life is in the region of the nation's capital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: That's certainly true, and the pictures you are looking at is I-95 from last night. Of course, police shut down an 80-mile stretch of that roadway to search vehicles. After the shooting happened in Ashland, Virginia, they stopped cars, they asked questions. But as far as we know, they did not find anything.
Just to bring you up to date about what's happening now, 37-year- old man was shot as he left a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Virginia. He was walking with his wife. She heard what sounded like a car backfiring. It turned out to be a shot, and her husband was hit, he turned to her and he said, "I'm hit," and then he dropped to his knees. The bullet went into his stomach. He is now in a Richmond area hospital, about 15 miles from Ashland, and he is struggling to survive. He is about to undergo more surgery later this afternoon, and police -- or doctors don't know if they can remove the bullet, and, of course, that would present a problem for the police in finding any evidence here.
Right now in Ashland near that Ponderosa restaurant, they are going over a wooded area behind the Ponderosa, looking for anything they can find. Of course, the biggest find that they could find, Fredricka, is a shell casing, but that wooded area is pretty dense, and it would be pretty hard to find anything like that. But they do have a lot of people out there, so you never know.
Again, we are awaiting this news conference to begin. It was supposed to begin two hours ago, and hopefully it will begin soon. That's the latest from here, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks, Carol. I'm sure they're trying to take as much time as possible to try to extrapolate whatever information they can, so they can actually have something meaningful to share during that press conference. But when it happens, we will be taking it live. Thanks, Carol.
If this weekend's attack is linked to the sniper, it will be the first shooting on a weekend. What is in the sniper's mind? If there's a way of knowing? And is he sending a message to law enforcement if, indeed, this case is related? We'll examine that question and others coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: More now on the search for a killer, sniper on the loose. We're awaiting a news briefing from investigators in the latest Virginia shooting that took place last night, but first let's get some thoughts from our experts on what we do know or we think we know so far in this investigation. Kelly McCann is a CNN security analyst and joins us live from Washington, and also CNN firearms analyst, Sergeant Major Eric Haney, and he's with me right here at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Good to see both of you, gentlemen.
At this juncture, investigators are still or at least surgeons are unable to remove the bullet from this latest victim, the 37-year- old, and that, of course, this ballistic evidence would be key in trying to determine whether there is, indeed, a link.
Let me begin with you, Sergeant Major, if they're unable to retrieve this bullet, because they didn't during the first round of surgeries; he is about to undergo another round of surgeries. Then how much more difficult is it going to be, or how much more critical, I should say, is it going to be in the search for physical evidence at the scene?
SGT. MAJ. ERIC HANEY, CNN FIREARMS ANALYST: Well, linking it to the sniper is going to be difficult, you know, there are some things that can be done. If they can find the shell casing lying on the ground, that will help greatly, because they already have one from that weapon. And also, what scales -- I say scale, you know, some sort of measurement to the X-rays, a ballistics expert would be able to tell you if that was a .22 caliber or .223 caliber.
WHITFIELD: How often is a technique like that used?
HANEY: I have no idea. I have no idea. I think seldom, because you know, how often we have run across anything like this. And I understand there have been cases where a bullet was left in a body and a potential criminal went free because they just couldn't retrieve it.
WHITFIELD: Right. Now, Kelly, this multi-jurisdictional task force is now being involved in this investigation, even though it has not been declared that these two shootings are linked. How do you suppose they are going about their search at that scene, given the fact that this is Hanover County jurisdiction, there hasn't been an official link being made, but in what capacity can the Montgomery County or Spotsylvania Count authorities or even FBI be involved in this search for physical evidence there?
KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Last night, it was made clear that there's been a lot of county coordination prior to the event last night. Last week, in fact, a lot of the police officials had sat down and talked through maybe an eventuality that this could happen elsewhere, so there was already a handshake agreement across the table statewide pretty much to rapidly shut down highways and handle situations like this.
The troublesome thing is, by necessity, when it was determined that the shot could have come from the treeline, then obviously right away you have an immediate potential officer safety problem. As they moved into the woods, when you're intently searching, and they did conduct a search last night, you also have to protect those officers whose total focus and concentration is looking for sign, looking for trace evidence, looking for physical remnants.
So, in fact, they had to have been preceded by people who had their safety, you know, responsibility. And then this morning, of course we go back through the same scenario again, very slowly walking the grid and trying to see each and every square inch of that area to see if anything is there.
So it is a laborious process. I know they have got to be running shifts. People get tired, so you have got to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) people. Which is not a bad idea, you get new fresh eyes on each square inch of terrain. But it is an onerous task, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Now, Sergeant Major, when they look at the physical or the scene of this crime location, and they look for the casings, for example, how far would the casings spring from the weapon to give them some sort of determination as to the vantage point or the location where the shooting may have taken place?
HANEY: Well, they go to the spot if they can determine by evidence on the ground where the person was, and if the shell case is ejected from a semiautomatic rifle, an AR-15, it is going to fling it out six, sometimes eight feet. And it's predictable where it goes. You know, off to the right and forward a little bit.
And they are going to cover that ground just literally with a fine tooth comb. I went to the site of the school shooting, and there was nothing but bare ground when the police had finished. They cut back the bush. They had raked all the leaves. Looking for imprints, anything, so they're extremely meticulous.
WHITFIELD: And when they did conduct that search, let's talk about the middle school in PG County, when did they conduct that search near that wooded area, we saw them literally on their hands and knees.
HANEY: Oh, yeah.
WHITFIELD: We saw the search dogs out there. They used all of these very basic resources to try to locate the bullets.
HANEY: Sure.
WHITFIELD: Or the casings.
HANEY: And they're not looking at it just once. There's the worm's eye view, with people on their hands and knees and faces on the ground. And then you stand up and also take a different view. You know, you don't want to lose the trees for the forest and vice versa. And they do it. You know, these are some fabulously competent police investigating on this, and they have every reason in the world to get to the bottom as fast as they can, so they're doing the right things.
WHITFIELD: Sergeant Major, as well as Kelly, oftentimes we call upon the expertise as well of John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted," and as he weighed in on the case, he had this to say. We want to share it with our viewers right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN WALSH, HOST, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": I've never seen in 16 years of tracking serial killers, I've never seen this concerted effort that law enforcement is using in this case. But I think the public will be the key here, absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Kelly, let me bring you in on this. Do you agree with John in that, A, you have to have the public cooperation and, B, this is unusual to have this kind of manpower being involved in this level of investigation?
MCCANN: Yes to both of them. I mean, Eric had said it earlier. In the military terms, force multiplier. And we said that about al Qaeda operating here in the United States, too. There's only so many police, and so they are multiplied greatly by all the citizens who routinely can observe and notice things that are suspicious or unusual.
Now, this goes at odds with people who are the watchdog organizations for rights. But attention on triteness now at this moment is just not the way to go. I mean, if you're not doing anything illegally and you're going about your business and you're stopped and detained for five minutes and questioned, that shouldn't necessarily upset anything, because they're not suggesting that state would continue.
So I think that there's going to be a fair amount of dissenters from the increased coverage, but that's just the way it has to be if you're going to interrupt these guys.
WHITFIELD: This is an intense investigation. It is a mysterious case, and, of course, it's happening in the backyards of the nation's capital, the White House. And National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is also weighing in on this, as are many other Cabinet members, and this is what she had to say most recently about this investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We don't have any evidence that this is the result of terrorism. Of course, no one can rule out that possibility, but right now Bob Mueller and the FBI are working very closely with local law enforcement officials. They're doing everything that they can. I think local law enforcement officials have been very aggressive, and we have to hope that this can all be resolved very, very soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Sergeant Major, is it your view that not only because this is the nation's capital, an investigation of this magnitude would have to involve authorities on the federal level?
HANEY: Most certainly. Most certainly, and Ms. Rice is correct when she says probably not al Qaeda, probably not transnational or Islamic terrorists, for a couple of reasons. One of those is they must trumpet what they do. If not immediately, a bit later. And they have reasons. Recruiting reasons, and those sorts of things. And also we're not picking up any rumors in the Mideast of coffee shops buzz with this sort of thing throughout that region, because the terrorists are notoriously loose-lipped and like to brag among their own. We're not hearing any of that at all.
WHITFIELD: OK, Sergeant Major Eric Haney, thank you very much, and Kelly McCann, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
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 20, 2002 - 11:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The latest suspected sniper victim is now clinging to life at a Richmond, Virginia hospital. However, his case has not been linked to the string of shootings that have taken place so far in the Washington, D.C. area. We'll have the latest on that, and we're now going to be joining with Carol Costello, who is in Montgomery County, Maryland, for the latest on the overall investigation -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I wish we had a lot more to tell you, Fredricka, but we still are awaiting that news conference to begin in Ashland, Virginia. It was supposed to begin in about two hours ago now, but a teleconference between investigators from different jurisdictions took longer than expected, and I would suspect police want to be on the same page before that press conference finally begins.
Now, we understand the news conference out of Ashland, Virginia, will be led by local authorities there, because as Fredricka just said, this sniper attack or this shooting has not been officially tied to the sniper attack, and until it is, it will not come under Montgomery County's jurisdiction.
You know, you talk about the anxiety levels here in the Washington area, and they are certainly high. CNN aired a special last night with Anderson Cooper and Daryn Kagan, our own Gary Tuchman, and they talked about how the atmosphere has changed here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... about 50 miles from the scene where it was backed up for about three or four miles with cars being pulled over by members of the police.
That was interesting and notable that it was so far from the scene selected area.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And have you seen any roadblocks since that roadblock 30 miles past?
TUCHMAN: We haven't seen any roadblocks, but we have seen a smattering of police cars with their flashing lights on, sitting on the shoulders of the road, perhaps awaiting orders. Either way, they're sitting there waiting for something.
COOPER: And what do you plan to do as soon as you get to the scene? I mean, what... TUCHMAN: Well, we're hoping to question any possible witnesses who were on the scene. We're hoping to talk to authorities who might be on the scene. They have set up a media staging area for us to be at when we get there, but obviously, Daryn was just pointing this out, things have changed so much in this region of the country.
I was just listening to a local radio announcer talking about the World Series game tonight. And he goes and that's happening really far away. And he didn't just mean geographically. He meant in a spiritual sense, how life perhaps in California right now is a lot more carefree than life is in the region of the nation's capital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: That's certainly true, and the pictures you are looking at is I-95 from last night. Of course, police shut down an 80-mile stretch of that roadway to search vehicles. After the shooting happened in Ashland, Virginia, they stopped cars, they asked questions. But as far as we know, they did not find anything.
Just to bring you up to date about what's happening now, 37-year- old man was shot as he left a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Virginia. He was walking with his wife. She heard what sounded like a car backfiring. It turned out to be a shot, and her husband was hit, he turned to her and he said, "I'm hit," and then he dropped to his knees. The bullet went into his stomach. He is now in a Richmond area hospital, about 15 miles from Ashland, and he is struggling to survive. He is about to undergo more surgery later this afternoon, and police -- or doctors don't know if they can remove the bullet, and, of course, that would present a problem for the police in finding any evidence here.
Right now in Ashland near that Ponderosa restaurant, they are going over a wooded area behind the Ponderosa, looking for anything they can find. Of course, the biggest find that they could find, Fredricka, is a shell casing, but that wooded area is pretty dense, and it would be pretty hard to find anything like that. But they do have a lot of people out there, so you never know.
Again, we are awaiting this news conference to begin. It was supposed to begin two hours ago, and hopefully it will begin soon. That's the latest from here, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks, Carol. I'm sure they're trying to take as much time as possible to try to extrapolate whatever information they can, so they can actually have something meaningful to share during that press conference. But when it happens, we will be taking it live. Thanks, Carol.
If this weekend's attack is linked to the sniper, it will be the first shooting on a weekend. What is in the sniper's mind? If there's a way of knowing? And is he sending a message to law enforcement if, indeed, this case is related? We'll examine that question and others coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: More now on the search for a killer, sniper on the loose. We're awaiting a news briefing from investigators in the latest Virginia shooting that took place last night, but first let's get some thoughts from our experts on what we do know or we think we know so far in this investigation. Kelly McCann is a CNN security analyst and joins us live from Washington, and also CNN firearms analyst, Sergeant Major Eric Haney, and he's with me right here at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Good to see both of you, gentlemen.
At this juncture, investigators are still or at least surgeons are unable to remove the bullet from this latest victim, the 37-year- old, and that, of course, this ballistic evidence would be key in trying to determine whether there is, indeed, a link.
Let me begin with you, Sergeant Major, if they're unable to retrieve this bullet, because they didn't during the first round of surgeries; he is about to undergo another round of surgeries. Then how much more difficult is it going to be, or how much more critical, I should say, is it going to be in the search for physical evidence at the scene?
SGT. MAJ. ERIC HANEY, CNN FIREARMS ANALYST: Well, linking it to the sniper is going to be difficult, you know, there are some things that can be done. If they can find the shell casing lying on the ground, that will help greatly, because they already have one from that weapon. And also, what scales -- I say scale, you know, some sort of measurement to the X-rays, a ballistics expert would be able to tell you if that was a .22 caliber or .223 caliber.
WHITFIELD: How often is a technique like that used?
HANEY: I have no idea. I have no idea. I think seldom, because you know, how often we have run across anything like this. And I understand there have been cases where a bullet was left in a body and a potential criminal went free because they just couldn't retrieve it.
WHITFIELD: Right. Now, Kelly, this multi-jurisdictional task force is now being involved in this investigation, even though it has not been declared that these two shootings are linked. How do you suppose they are going about their search at that scene, given the fact that this is Hanover County jurisdiction, there hasn't been an official link being made, but in what capacity can the Montgomery County or Spotsylvania Count authorities or even FBI be involved in this search for physical evidence there?
KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Last night, it was made clear that there's been a lot of county coordination prior to the event last night. Last week, in fact, a lot of the police officials had sat down and talked through maybe an eventuality that this could happen elsewhere, so there was already a handshake agreement across the table statewide pretty much to rapidly shut down highways and handle situations like this.
The troublesome thing is, by necessity, when it was determined that the shot could have come from the treeline, then obviously right away you have an immediate potential officer safety problem. As they moved into the woods, when you're intently searching, and they did conduct a search last night, you also have to protect those officers whose total focus and concentration is looking for sign, looking for trace evidence, looking for physical remnants.
So, in fact, they had to have been preceded by people who had their safety, you know, responsibility. And then this morning, of course we go back through the same scenario again, very slowly walking the grid and trying to see each and every square inch of that area to see if anything is there.
So it is a laborious process. I know they have got to be running shifts. People get tired, so you have got to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) people. Which is not a bad idea, you get new fresh eyes on each square inch of terrain. But it is an onerous task, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Now, Sergeant Major, when they look at the physical or the scene of this crime location, and they look for the casings, for example, how far would the casings spring from the weapon to give them some sort of determination as to the vantage point or the location where the shooting may have taken place?
HANEY: Well, they go to the spot if they can determine by evidence on the ground where the person was, and if the shell case is ejected from a semiautomatic rifle, an AR-15, it is going to fling it out six, sometimes eight feet. And it's predictable where it goes. You know, off to the right and forward a little bit.
And they are going to cover that ground just literally with a fine tooth comb. I went to the site of the school shooting, and there was nothing but bare ground when the police had finished. They cut back the bush. They had raked all the leaves. Looking for imprints, anything, so they're extremely meticulous.
WHITFIELD: And when they did conduct that search, let's talk about the middle school in PG County, when did they conduct that search near that wooded area, we saw them literally on their hands and knees.
HANEY: Oh, yeah.
WHITFIELD: We saw the search dogs out there. They used all of these very basic resources to try to locate the bullets.
HANEY: Sure.
WHITFIELD: Or the casings.
HANEY: And they're not looking at it just once. There's the worm's eye view, with people on their hands and knees and faces on the ground. And then you stand up and also take a different view. You know, you don't want to lose the trees for the forest and vice versa. And they do it. You know, these are some fabulously competent police investigating on this, and they have every reason in the world to get to the bottom as fast as they can, so they're doing the right things.
WHITFIELD: Sergeant Major, as well as Kelly, oftentimes we call upon the expertise as well of John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted," and as he weighed in on the case, he had this to say. We want to share it with our viewers right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN WALSH, HOST, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": I've never seen in 16 years of tracking serial killers, I've never seen this concerted effort that law enforcement is using in this case. But I think the public will be the key here, absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Kelly, let me bring you in on this. Do you agree with John in that, A, you have to have the public cooperation and, B, this is unusual to have this kind of manpower being involved in this level of investigation?
MCCANN: Yes to both of them. I mean, Eric had said it earlier. In the military terms, force multiplier. And we said that about al Qaeda operating here in the United States, too. There's only so many police, and so they are multiplied greatly by all the citizens who routinely can observe and notice things that are suspicious or unusual.
Now, this goes at odds with people who are the watchdog organizations for rights. But attention on triteness now at this moment is just not the way to go. I mean, if you're not doing anything illegally and you're going about your business and you're stopped and detained for five minutes and questioned, that shouldn't necessarily upset anything, because they're not suggesting that state would continue.
So I think that there's going to be a fair amount of dissenters from the increased coverage, but that's just the way it has to be if you're going to interrupt these guys.
WHITFIELD: This is an intense investigation. It is a mysterious case, and, of course, it's happening in the backyards of the nation's capital, the White House. And National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is also weighing in on this, as are many other Cabinet members, and this is what she had to say most recently about this investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We don't have any evidence that this is the result of terrorism. Of course, no one can rule out that possibility, but right now Bob Mueller and the FBI are working very closely with local law enforcement officials. They're doing everything that they can. I think local law enforcement officials have been very aggressive, and we have to hope that this can all be resolved very, very soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Sergeant Major, is it your view that not only because this is the nation's capital, an investigation of this magnitude would have to involve authorities on the federal level?
HANEY: Most certainly. Most certainly, and Ms. Rice is correct when she says probably not al Qaeda, probably not transnational or Islamic terrorists, for a couple of reasons. One of those is they must trumpet what they do. If not immediately, a bit later. And they have reasons. Recruiting reasons, and those sorts of things. And also we're not picking up any rumors in the Mideast of coffee shops buzz with this sort of thing throughout that region, because the terrorists are notoriously loose-lipped and like to brag among their own. We're not hearing any of that at all.
WHITFIELD: OK, Sergeant Major Eric Haney, thank you very much, and Kelly McCann, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
