The Beltway Sniper Execution

Back in 2002, it was a time of fear, with people reducing their activities or making themselves less of a target for the sniper. As time went by, I noticed he was hitting one target per county. Malvo and Muhammad's biggest mistake was stopping at a rest area to sleep, and it took an alert trucker and some other people to box them in and call the police. This, fortunately, stopped the shootings.

CNN had a story on Muhammad's execution.

Had the police not ignored the reports of a Chevy Caprice and focused on the white box trucks at first, the spree could have ended sooner. It was noticeable with people making fast tracks to their car or the store as well as sitting in their cars while pumping gas. There was even a gas station owner who found the largest tarp he could find and hung it from the roof above the pumps thus shielding his customers from being the next target.

When the sniper hit the FBI analyst, I had the feeling the FBI would take it personally. Seems they did. I was elsewhere 5 miles away finishing up on a bowling game and preparing to head home. Fortunately, I was stuck in the the beginning part of the backups, but it got much worse not long afterwards. I've been to the area where that shot was made. Law enforcement bottlenecked the traffic on the highway I was on, throttling it down from about 3-4 lanes to one. They did this to other major roadways. Many agents had automatic weapons other than their usual service weapons. Just about every highway exit had at least one law enforcement vehicle and agent standing there.

Out at the Newseum, they had a replica of the car used for the shootings, but this one didn't have the hole in the trunk the original car had. This hole allowed them to place their deadly shots. They also had the Unabomber's cabin on display as well. They may still be there today.

Personally, I'm glad they've removed both suspects from society...