How could authorities stop a more careful version of the Beltway sniper?

In My Humble Opinion
1

As awful as mass shootings like Newtown or Aurora are, they are inherently going to be limited in their body count, and end in the death or arrest of the shooter. What haunts me is to think about the potential for another sniper who doesn’t leave clues for the police like Muhammad did. And given the repeated occurrences of mass shootings in the past (some inspired in part by previous cases), it’s hard for me to believe this will never happen again.

With a hidden trunk setup like he used, and selecting randomised locations (more widely spread out than just one metro area) for targets in heavily populated areas near a confluence of freeways, couldn’t a sniper go on killing nearly indefinitely? Would civil liberties have to be restricted to an unprecedented level? Would people start driving around furtively with tinted windows, and only stop their cars in areas with canopies or lots of trees around? Or is there some other way of combating this potential threat that I’m not thinking of?

2

Not much they could do, same could be said for a serial killer that picks targets at random in random locations. Hope to get lucky basically.

3

No underworld connections, no stated demands, just anonymous thrill killing in a random fashion? Alert cops and/or responsible bystanders could observe certain things at the crime scenes. Eventually cops will form a pattern on his MO, and they’ll be on the look out for that. He/she will probably kill a lot of people before he’s finally taken down.

4

It was mostly luck that lead to Muhammad’s arrest. Fingerprints on a ammo clip dropped at a liquor store robbery that had occurred in Montgomery, Alabama. That give the cops Malvo’s name and he was buddies with Muhammad.

Otherwise theres no telling how long the killing would have continued.

I don’t think they ever found out who called in the tip about the liquor store robbery?

5

There’s also the thing that people that does thing like that just for the thrill aren’t really acting rationally, they will eventually get overconfident, make mistakes or take greater risks to increase the thrill.

6

With current technology (GPS time and smartphones), we could probably make a system to triangulate gunshot sounds by sharing data from an app.

7

It wouldn’t necessarily have to be thrill killing. Even Muhammad, in his confused way, was apparently motivated by “Islamic jihad” or whatever. Someone else who had this (or some other) kind of political motivation could really put the “terror” in terrorism, as I think it could be more socially disruptive in some ways on a per-death basis than 9/11.

ETA: The idea of such an app is clever and reassuring, Aaron. Seems less restrictive of civil liberties than most alternatives.

8

Yes, but when there are political motives behind it there is usually a desire to inform people what those motives are(eg the Unabomber said he would stop if the newspapers published his manifesto), or the whole thing ends up being kind of pointless.

9

“Gunfire locator” technology exists that can locate snipers by the sound of the gunshots. Rooftop triangulation systems can be installed in an area; I’ve also seen a program touting a vehicle-mounted system (but cannot find a handy link) that supposedly distinguishes between the report and the sonic boom of the bullet and uses the difference between the two to locate the sniper.

A large dragnet of people and systems would (eventually) probably catch the perp.

10

Reassuring!

ETA: The Unabomber was only caught because his manifesto was recognised by his brother is being his specific kind of writing. If it were an Islamic terrorist or somebody with a more generic militia/neo-Nazi style orientation, I’m not sure that would happen.

11

That’s what I was thinking of. I bet it would be easy to turn into a voluntary app, and able to locate shots within seconds.

12

But that’s the point, he didn’t just send bombs and keep quiet, he wanted people to know why he was doing it too and was caught as a result. Even if your generic Islamic/militia/neo-Nazi/anti-fascist/vegan terrorist is providing you with less information than the Unabomber did, knowing the motive gives the police a starting point for their investigation.

13

There are more transportation and law enforcement traffic cams out there now, plus the police cruiser mounted cameras that rapid-read license plates. Between the two of them, in urban areas that opens the possibility of being able to find a set of plates common to the locations where a shooting was committed.

14

I’m thinking he probably isn’t driving around the same area with his own identifiable plates.

15

If they’re being careful, how do we know there isn’t one (or several :eek: ) out there now?

16

What difference would it make how quickly a pile of sound-direction gizmos could work out where the shooter was? It’s just as accurate and much faster — a second or two — to see which side of someone’s body or head the bullet entered.

17

:confused:

18

What you’re talking about only gives you a direction for the shot and probably with not much accuracy for the angle. You don’t know the distance for the shot, and without that, you have a much larger area to canvass in terms of interviewing eyewitnesses and looking at camera footage.

Those witnesses to each shooting are how you’d eventually catch the guy(s). Identify their vehicle, their MO, their faces, and any evidence left behind. It’s easy to speculate on a perfect killer who makes no mistakes, but real people do make mistakes. Plus, real equipment also malfunctions. So maybe some evidence is dropped at the scene, or maybe they have car trouble, or whatever. If the authorities know where to look, they’ll be more likely to catch those mistakes and use that evidence to get their killers. The body count might be quite high compared to other killers, but ultimately the only way to avoid getting caught is to stop killing people.

19

Personally, I think a killer like the Beltway Sniper, with a little more care, probably could have gone on indefinitely. As I understand, the downfall was a combination of luck on the part of the investigators and sloppiness/bravado on the part of Muhammad and Malvo.

I live in Northern Virginia, and the situation was quite a bit more chaotic than it may have seemed to others outside the area. More often than not, people would crouch behind their vehicles while pumping gas. I’d see people run from their cars into the grocery store to minimize time outside. I knew people who would call the police every single time they saw anything they thought might be suspicious, which could be all sorts of ridiculous things. The shootings were seemingly more and more random, so it was just adding to the overall chaos. Hell, people were even straight up lying to the police about what they saw.

For instance, I remember one of the early tips was that they were probably in a white van. I didn’t quite expect the trunk thing, but I figured it wasn’t right at the time because, while it’s just too conspicuous and surprisingly common. Some people would freak out any time they saw one. Some people would even make up seeing stuff about how they saw the shooters get into or out of one, perhaps hoping for their 15-minutes. Cops were led on a wild goose chase by what was likely an honest, but incorrect, initial tip, followed by panicked citizens, and liars. Hell, I imagine Muhammad and Malvo, being aware of that tip and knowing it was bogus, took advantage of it in choosing some of their locations.

So, sure, we have better technology, but I’m not sure what more it could do to help with the investigation. If they were slick about picking fairly random targets over a large area, how coudl they possibly set up anything to give them extra information? People would have to be walking around with their cell phones with a customized app to really get much more info.

And with a little more planning, they could make it even more confusing. Have a team of more than the two people. Work together to split up the targets, but make effort to strongly connect them, like perhaps even using the same weapon and vehicle, so someone can be seen at work while a shooting happened far away, or give them time to make things seem more random, like have a shooting in DC, then one in Richmond just two or three hours later, so it could conceivably be the same person and look rushed but actually be well planned. Have someone on the team make a road trip to Cleveland or Atlanta or someplace like that and do one there, just to spread them thinner.

Still, in all of that, I imagine that they could cause even more widespread panic, as much because of the new technology, but ultimately, anyone would probably make a mistake that would get caught with enough people looking at it. I really don’t know what more they could do to get caught other than mostly getting lucky again.

20

See this is why these people always get caught eventually.

If they operate over a larger geographic area, that means 1) they’re doing more traveling, with more chances for traffic tickets, flat tires, credit card usage and cell phone trails and 2) they’re less familiar with the areas they’re working in.

If they recruit more people, that’s also more opportunities for someone to either start showboating, or to change their mind and turn to the police as an informant.