The terror snipers

It’s time for those investigating the Ohio and West Virginia snipers to look at a map of the United States.

John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo began terrorizing Americans in Maryland and the District of Columbia before moving to Virginia with their sniping campaign.

Earlier this year, a similar sniper pattern was noticed in West Virginia. And before law enforcement officials could get to the bottom of that deadly spree, a new one has been preoccupying the nation in Ohio.

Maryland, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio: Anyone else see anything notable there?

Now I know the D.C. snipers are in custody, with one still facing trial and the other awaiting sentencing. I’m not suggesting the same people are behind all these shootings. What I am suggesting is for investigators to think of what is apparently unthinkable to them – that we may have similar motives in all three cases.

So far, the main thought for the cops seems to be to avoid panicking the public. Yet, it was the public that nabbed Muhammad and Malvo after law enforcement experts bungled the case for months – too afraid releasing information might lead to racial profiling.

In Ohio, where law enforcement officials have consulted the D.C. sniper investigators, they are unwilling even to refer to the shootings as sniper attacks.

Chief Deputy Steve Martin, of the Franklin County sheriff’s office, said the word implies “a military person” who dresses in camouflage, lies in wait and shoots from long range. “I’m not ready to say that yet,” Martin said, noting that the shooter “may be mobile.”

Well, Muhammad and Malvo were mobile and they were not known to wear camo. It looks like political correctness may be spreading East to West along with the sniper attacks.

Nevertheless, the Columbus Dispatch has dubbed the shooter the “I-270 sniper.”

Authorities investigating three apparently random fatal shootings in August outside convenience stores in West Virginia said they are looking at recent shootings 200 miles away in Ohio in a desperate search for clues.

“There’s potential for concern that there may be some connection, and we want to explore that obviously to see whether there is or isn’t,” said Joseph Ciccarelli, senior supervisory agent for the FBI in Charleston. “It’s safe to say right now there’s nothing to lead us to believe they are connected, but that could change.”

So far, who fired the shots that killed Gary Carrier Jr., Jeanie Patton and Okey Meadows Jr. remains a mystery to the 73 investigators pursuing nearly 3,000 leads.

Carrier, 44, was talking on a pay telephone at a Charleston Go-Mart when he was shot Aug. 10. Four days later, Patton, 31, and Meadows, 26, were killed within 90 minutes of each other at rural convenience stores about 10 miles apart: Patton was filling her car with gas, Meadows was buying milk at a pay window.

Each was killed late at night by a .22-caliber bullet fired from the same weapon.

The 14 Ohio shootings happened along a stretch of Interstate 270 near Columbus. One woman was killed in those shootings, which began in May but have happened mainly in the past two months. Police have no suspects in those cases.

The West Virginia shootings were similar to the Washington-area sniper shootings that terrorized the region last year, and prompted authorities to offer a $100,000 reward to help solve the cases. The investigation yielded little more than vague descriptions of a white heavyset man with a goatee and a grainy security videotape.

Lack of an obvious motive also has stumped investigators.

“We have looked at this being drug-related,” said Kanawha County Chief Deputy Phil Morris. “We have also looked at it being a [random] sniper-type of shooting. We will continue looking at all aspects.”

It seems they’ve looked at it from every angle but the most obvious one – the same motive of Muhammad and Malvo.

Is it possible this sniper case might, too, be terrorism-related? Might the guilty parties in West Virginia and Ohio also be al-Qaida wannabes? Is it within the realm of possibility that these are copycat shooters? What’s the harm in asking the question? Are we likely to apprehend a shooter if we don’t understand his motive?

Let me point out that I was the guy who suggested long before they were apprehended that the D.C. snipers were motivated by an allegiance to the ideals of radical Islam. It turned out to be accurate. Isn’t it time to think outside the box once again?