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CNN Saturday Morning News
Look Back at Investigation into Sniper Shootings in Washington D.C. Area
Aired November 02, 2002 - 08:15 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Authorities in Maryland have linked yet another shooting to the sniper suspects. This one came in early September, weeks before the series of attacks began around the D.C. area.
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has our story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The shooting in the Hillendale (ph) area of Montgomery County, Maryland took place on September 14. That's more than two weeks before authorities realized they had a serial sniper on the loose.
The victim survived, but the M.O. was the same -- a single shot fired outside a strip mall off the major highway.
ARNIE ZELKOVITZ, LIQUOR STORE OWNER: And there was no robbery attempt, nobody came up to us. We never saw anything.
ARENA: Police now say the sniper suspects' 1990 Chevy Caprice was in the area that day, allowing them to definitively link the September shooting to the string of attacks. One witness tells CNN that he told police the night of the shooting that he saw a dark colored older Chevy Caprice driving slowly away from the scene.
Montgomery County's police chief was repeatedly asked by the press about any possible link between that shooting and the sniper attacks, but would only say ballistic evidence was inconclusive.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: I still have not really comprehended the relevancy of the persistent questioning with regards to that case.
ARENA: It was not the last time police would be told about a dark Caprice. Two witnesses to a sniper shooting in Washington, D.C. on October 3 also described a similar vehicle.
KARL LARGIE, SHOOTING WITNESS: So I was still on the phone ignoring it when I just observed the car. It was a Caprice, a dark colored Caprice.
GAIL HOWARD, SHOOTING WITNESS: It was dark colored and it looks like an old police car. That's what I noticed.
ARENA: D.C. police did issue this lookout out October 7 for that type of vehicle. But when asked about its importance, this is what Chief Moose had to say.
MOOSE: Well, that is also a lookout that has been put out there and I think there's been more law enforcement focus on that, not a big push for public feedback about that.
ARENA: In fact, Washington area police stopped the alleged sniper's car on numerous occasions, including the evening of October 7, when suspect John Allen Muhammad was found sleeping in the vehicle in Baltimore, Maryland.
Investigators were focused instead on a white van that several witnesses had reported seeing at various crime scenes. Chief Moose said this past Saturday that he believed the possibility of a Caprice being involved in the sniper attacks had been ruled out.
MOOSE: I was also somewhere in the investigation told that we had located that, that it had been somehow abandoned.
ARENA (on camera): A D.C. homicide detective who checked out that abandoned car said that the chief had received "bad information."
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Washington D.C. Area>
Aired November 2, 2002 - 08:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Authorities in Maryland have linked yet another shooting to the sniper suspects. This one came in early September, weeks before the series of attacks began around the D.C. area.
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has our story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The shooting in the Hillendale (ph) area of Montgomery County, Maryland took place on September 14. That's more than two weeks before authorities realized they had a serial sniper on the loose.
The victim survived, but the M.O. was the same -- a single shot fired outside a strip mall off the major highway.
ARNIE ZELKOVITZ, LIQUOR STORE OWNER: And there was no robbery attempt, nobody came up to us. We never saw anything.
ARENA: Police now say the sniper suspects' 1990 Chevy Caprice was in the area that day, allowing them to definitively link the September shooting to the string of attacks. One witness tells CNN that he told police the night of the shooting that he saw a dark colored older Chevy Caprice driving slowly away from the scene.
Montgomery County's police chief was repeatedly asked by the press about any possible link between that shooting and the sniper attacks, but would only say ballistic evidence was inconclusive.
CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: I still have not really comprehended the relevancy of the persistent questioning with regards to that case.
ARENA: It was not the last time police would be told about a dark Caprice. Two witnesses to a sniper shooting in Washington, D.C. on October 3 also described a similar vehicle.
KARL LARGIE, SHOOTING WITNESS: So I was still on the phone ignoring it when I just observed the car. It was a Caprice, a dark colored Caprice.
GAIL HOWARD, SHOOTING WITNESS: It was dark colored and it looks like an old police car. That's what I noticed.
ARENA: D.C. police did issue this lookout out October 7 for that type of vehicle. But when asked about its importance, this is what Chief Moose had to say.
MOOSE: Well, that is also a lookout that has been put out there and I think there's been more law enforcement focus on that, not a big push for public feedback about that.
ARENA: In fact, Washington area police stopped the alleged sniper's car on numerous occasions, including the evening of October 7, when suspect John Allen Muhammad was found sleeping in the vehicle in Baltimore, Maryland.
Investigators were focused instead on a white van that several witnesses had reported seeing at various crime scenes. Chief Moose said this past Saturday that he believed the possibility of a Caprice being involved in the sniper attacks had been ruled out.
MOOSE: I was also somewhere in the investigation told that we had located that, that it had been somehow abandoned.
ARENA (on camera): A D.C. homicide detective who checked out that abandoned car said that the chief had received "bad information."
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Washington D.C. Area>
