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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/169444_shapcol18.html Cops held D.C. snipers' other gun Sunday, April 18, 2004 By THOMAS SHAPLEY The 9/11 commission suggests that the FBI and intelligence agencies may have come tantalizingly close to disrupting the terrorist attack plot. And less than a year later, local law enforcement officers here might have prevented another round of terror -- but for the lack of a tiny bit of routine paperwork. A story to be published in the April 20 issue of Gun Week suggests that the infamous Bushmaster rifle stolen from Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma was not the first weapon of choice for "D.C. Snipers" John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. They may have planned to use another rifle, more powerful and deadly, in their killing spree. Gun Week, owned by the Second Amendment Foundation, is a nationally circulated firearms news publication with offices in Buffalo, New York, and Bellevue, Wash. According to the upcoming story, by senior editor Dave Workman, the rifle the pair likely wanted to use wound up locked up in the Pierce County Sheriff's Department armory months before the sniper mayhem began. Their apparent weapon of choice was a Remington Model 700, equipped with a telescopic sight, bipod and, more troubling, a barrel that had been shortened by 6 inches and threaded to accept a silencer. Workman, a firearms expert, and law enforcement agree that the Remington would have been a perfect tool in the snipers' strategy of firing through a small opening in the trunk of their car. It would have been accurate at more than twice the range; its impact more destructive to its human targets, and the silencer would have allowed the snipers to fire more shots from each location with less risk of being detected. But Muhammad and Malvo lost the Remington before it could be put to their terrible use, a loss that apparently spurred Muhammad and Malvo to steal the Bushmaster from Bull's Eye. The Remington came to Pierce County deputies after two men found it in a vacant lot on Aug. 18, 2002. They reported hearing what sounded like someone running away through the brush as they came upon the gun. They found the loaded rifle -- minus silencer -- at a vantage point with a clear line of fire to both an apartment building and a busy highway. Pierce County deputies took the Remington into custody, filed a found-property report and checked to see if the rifle was registered. It was not. Despite the unusual circumstances in which the rifle was found, no additional follow-up was done. They didn't, for instance, try to find the owner by tracing the weapon's serial number through the dealer who sold it. If they had, they would have found that the dealer was Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, and the owner was Earl Lee Dancy Jr. It was Dancy who later told the FBI that he'd let Muhammad and Malvo use his firearms when they lived in Tacoma, including the .45-caliber pistol used to murder Keenya Cook. And it was Dancy who said he'd bought the Remington 700 for Muhammad, because Muhammad could not legally buy a firearm. And after the pair abandoned it in the vacant Tacoma lot, it was Dancy who -- at Muhammad's urging -- had the chutzpah to report the "theft" of that expensive rifle to the Fife Police Department on Aug. 20, 2002. Fife Police Chief Rob DeGroot, who joined the department less than a year ago, says the standard procedure should have been to enter the missing weapon's serial number into the state and national crime computer networks. That standard procedure was not followed. A detective who later handled the case said a clerk simply failed to make the computer entry. On Nov. 20, 2002, Fife got a phone call no department would relish. It was the FBI, asking about that theft report (Dancy had contacted the FBI after recognizing Muhammad and Malvo in news reports of their arrest). After checking, Fife officers realized the report had never been entered into the computer systems. When it was, there was an immediate "hit" with the rifle recovered in Pierce County three months earlier. Had Fife run the Remington when Dancy reported it stolen, it would have been identified as the weapon recovered under strange circumstances in Tacoma. From there, what might have happened is anyone's guess. Police might have queried Dancy more thoroughly. He might have confessed his illegal "straw" purchase for Muhammad. That might have led police to contact Muhammad and the killings might have been prevented. Or not. Dancy might have brazened it out. Police might have returned a valuable missing article to a grateful owner. The rifle might have found its way back to the killers and the death toll driven even higher. If there's a lesson here, it may be the same as 9/11. Communications, details, procedures and paperwork matter, and there is no telling when the petty can prove to be the profound.
Thomas Shapley is an editorial writer and member of the P-I Editorial Board. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] © 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
