October
24, 2002
So The Sniper May Not Have Been an Angry White Male, After All
By Seth Gitell
With two suspects in the capital-area sniping case
now
in custody, police still don’t have many answers. But if it
turns out that John Allan Muhammad and his stepson, Lee Malvo,
were indeed the individuals responsible for the shooting spree
that killed 10 Americans in October, one thing will be clear:
all the crime experts who predicted that the killer would be an
angry white male in the mold of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh
were wrong.
It’s true that Muhammad, from what little information
we know, bears certain similarities to McVeigh: military veteran,
anger towards the government, penchant for shooting, and paramilitary
training. But there are two key differences: Muhammad is not white
and is, unlike McVeigh, a convert to Islam. Officials are already
signaling that Muhammad has expressed
sympathy for the September 11 hijackers. If the early signals
hold up, a handful of commentators should be recognized for being
on the right track.
Michelle
Malkin wrote as early as October 11 that "the media immediately
embraced the Angry White Male … But the faces of evil come in
every color. We must be prepared for all possibilities, not just
the ones that play into reporters' preconceived notions about
hunters, soldiers, tattoos and guns." Even more impressively,
Malkin, who earned her journalist stripes in Washington State
-- where Muhammad is said to have lived -- invoked the example
of James Ujaama, "a black American Muslim convert [who] was indicted
in August on charges of conspiring to help al Qaeda establish
a terrorist training camp on a ranch in southern Oregon" to buttress
her point. While no link has been alleged between Muhammad and
al Qaeda, that example nonetheless looks good now.
Another standout piece was penned
by Caleb Carr, most famous for authoring the 19th century
crime thriller, The Alienist. On October 18, Carr wrote of the
seeming lack of similarity between the various victims of the
sniper. "As said above, the victims share neither sex, race, nor
age group -- a fact that has led to the general declaration that
they shared no characteristics at all," wrote Carr. "But in fact,
they did: They were all Americans, engaged in the typical American
activities of pumping gas, going to school, shopping, etc. --
activities that have suddenly been identified as potentially lethal
in the capital area. But since nationality and activity do not
fit the established criteria for serial or spree killer victims,
they have been generally discounted."
Even if al Qaeda bears no connection to the recent
killings, it is possible, as officials suggest, that the killer
could have a mere loose feeling of solidarity toward that terrorist
organization. Remember, the innovation of al Qaeda is that it
does not operate as an ultra-hierarchical Spectra-like group.
Rather, it relies in large part on a loose network of adherents
who commit seemingly random acts of violence in the group’s name.
The July 4th shooting spree at the El Al airline counter in Los
Angeles -- remember that one? -- fit into that pattern, as did
the shooting at the Empire State Building in 1997.
Now that law enforcement authorities have been forced
to move beyond the "Angry White Male" profile in the sniper case,
looking beyond the conventional wisdom may be useful in some of
the other unsolved cases of our time. First and foremost in that
category, I’d place the Anthrax investigation. Perhaps the reason
officials have failed to uncover the perpetrator behind the wave
of Anthrax attacks last year is that they’re looking in the wrong
place. Broadening the scope of potential assailants may make it
easier to bring them to justice.
Seth
Gitell is the political writer for the Boston Phoenix. This article
originally appeared in the Phoenix and can be viewed by clicking
here.
