 
 
 | 
 |  |  |
| Media played key role in sniper hunt | | | | Unusual cooperation with police helped capture suspects | |  | Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose complained on Oct. 9 about the media reporting a Tarot card found at the scene of a sniper shooting, saying the information was leaked and could damage the investigation.
 | | | | By Jonathan Dube
MSNBC |
| | | Oct. 25 — Early in the serial sniper investigation, police unsuccessfully tried to tightly control the media, pleading that they stop reporting information not officially released. Before long, investigators realized they needed the media and began using news outlets to communicate with the killer. And in the end, through aggressive reporting and unusual cooperation with authorities, the media played a significant role in the capture of the two suspects. |
|
| |
|
|
| | |
THE RELATIONSHIP between the media and the sniper task force got off to a bumpy start. After a number of outlets reporting the discovery of a tarot card at a shooting scene that read, “Dear Policeman, I am God,” Montgomery County, Md., Police Chief Charles Moose fumed at the media.
“I have not received any message that the citizens ... want Channel 9 or The Washington Post or any other media outlet to solve this case,” said Moose, who headed the sniper task force. “If they do, then let me know. We will go and do other police work, and we will turn this case over to the media, and you can solve it.” | | |
Moose urged the media to not report information that hadn’t been officially released, saying, “I beg the media to let us do our job.”
But in the end the case turned on information that the media learned of on its own and then broadcast, helping to snare the suspects.
While police released the name and photo of one of the suspects Wednesday night, they did not release any information about the type of car he was driving. But a number of news outlets, including NBC News and CNN, heard an APB on police scanners for a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, with the New Jersey license plate NDA-21Z, NBC’s Pete Williams reported.
|
|
| Truck driver Ron Lantz made the 911 call that helped capture the two suspects in the sniper case, after hearing a description of a wanted Chevy Caprice on the radio while driving his truck.
| | 
Cable TV outlets broadcast the description, and soon the information was picked up by The Associated Press and spread throughout the media.
After hearing the description broadcast on the radio, truck driver Ron Lantz spotted a car matching the description in a parking lot off Maryland’s interstate highway and reported it to police, leading to the men’s capture.
 Latest developments in sniper case
REMARKABLY COOPERATIVE
During most of the investigation, the media was remarkably cooperative. Investigators learned early on that chastising the media was counterproductive, because they needed television networks to help draw in tips from the public and to communicate with the sniper.
The tips from the public, including a friend of the men who told police he had suspicions about the two, helped investigators finger the suspects. In this capacity, the often-maligned 24-hour news cycle fueled by cable TV became a key asset.
|
|
|
|
|
 | | | October 23 — After announcing that an arrest warrant had been issued for John Allen Mohammed, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose read a cryptic message to the sniper. |
|
|
|
“It’s like America’s Most Wanted, Plus, times a million,” said Brent Turvey, author of “Criminal Profiling” and a forensic scientist with Knowledge Solutions consultants in Bend, Ore. “You get lots of information out there, fast. And that’s the way you solve cases like this.”
Once the sniper began leaving notes for police, the easiest way for investigators to communicate back with him was through the media. Despite little explanation, the media willingly and repeatedly broadcast a series of cryptic messages like “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose” from police, after Moose asked, “Carry it clearly and carry it often.”
It’s unusual, though not unprecedented, for the media to serve as a conduit between police and a suspect. Doing so in this case was appropriate because it fulfilled the media’s responsibility to serve the public interest, said Bob Steele, a journalism ethics expert at The Poynter Institute.
“We must seriously weigh our responsibility that comes with that request, and the downside that goes with that request,” Steele said. “When we collaborate or cooperate with law enforcement agencies, we may change the nature of our watchdog role. We may create questions in the minds of the public as to whether we are capable of rigorously investigating law enforcement.”
The media took an even more unusual step in cooperating with police earlier this week when several networks learned that one of the notes included a specific threat toward children. Investigators asked media outlets to hold off broadcasting the information, and most did so until police released it themselves on Tuesday.
Holding back information from the public is an even tougher decision and rarer choice for media organizations, Steele said, because the press has a “continual obligation to inform the public in meaningful and significant ways about cases, including holding authorities accountable.”
|
|
|
| | 
“When police make requests, it’s appropriate to ask why,” said Steele, who also felt the media handled the child threat request appropriately. “If they ask us to withhold something, we must ask for how long. If they ask us to reveal something, why. We must, as journalists, retain a level of professional independence in order to serve the public good, but at the same time not miss a legitimate opportunity to resolve a very dangerous situation.”
Judging where to draw the line between what’s appropriate cooperation with police and what’s too cozy can be a tough call for media organizations, but one factor to consider is how honest news outlets are with the public, said Seattle University journalism professor Tomas Guillen.
Guillen points to the case of a serial strangler in Wichita, Kan., known as BTK, who killed an estimated seven people in the 1970s. Stuck with few leads, police asked KAKE-TV to try to communicate with the killer by appealing to his subconscious mind in a news report. Using the technique of subliminal communication, employees at the station spliced its news broadcast and inserted a few frames of film with the message, “Contact the chief.” The killer was never caught, and the television station’s credibility was damaged.
“That’s going too far, because the viewers weren’t told,” Guillen said. “In that case the media basically became an arm of law enforcement.”
DID MEDIA AID SNIPER?
Despite the media’s cooperation in the sniper coverage, many media watchers, including Guillen, felt some of the coverage did go too far. By synthesizing and analyzing the evidence, he said, the media helped give the killer tips on where to strike next.
|
|
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
“They supplied so much information that they were aiding and abetting,” Guillen said.
To be sure, shortly after the mass coverage of the shootings began, a series of links between statements in the media and actions by the sniper emerged.
First several criminal profilers speculated in the media about how the sniper “has a God complex” or was “playing God.” Within days, the sniper left a tarot card reading at a shooting scene with the phrase, “I am God.”
Then police and school officials publicly assured parents that students would be safe at school. A few days later, the sniper shot a student at a Bowie, Md., school.
After several newspapers ran stories speculating about why the killer hadn’t shot anyone on a weekend, the next victim was shot on a Saturday night.
|
|
|
|
| | 
Perhaps the most chilling example came last Friday, when former FBI profiler Robert Ressler said on CNN, “I could see, he could keep going on down to Ashland,” The next day, a 37-year-old man was shot outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Va.
“That comment was irresponsible,” Turvey said. “That kind of stuff, where you’re suggesting targets to the guy, that’s simply irresponsible.”
Aside from that instance, Turvey said he blamed investigators, not the media, for letting out information early in the investigation that may have helped the sniper pick his targets.
“The police were giving away all their tactical capabilities to the media, what security precautions they were taking, what surveillance they were using, where and when the sniper appeared most likely to strike,” he said. “I don’t think the people involved were experienced enough to realize that what they were saying from the beginning was having an impact.”
The media, Turvey said, handled its role much more responsibly than the police did.
“I think the media in this has been particularly heroic,” he said. “Because they’ve conveyed security tips to the public, withheld information, and let themselves be used as a conduit to the sniper. I’ve never seen the media used quite like this, and it renews my faith in journalism.”
|
|
| |
| |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
Crime and Punishment News MSNBC's Top News |
Sen. Wellstone dies in plane crash
