People expect an update from me.
There's nothing more unnerving than seeing a news reporter standing in front of a shopping center that you frequently walk to. Since I had just woken up at four o'clock this afternoon to see this station airing news when they would normally air a talk show, I was afraid of what this person might report. It turns out to just be a live shoot for a story about how the snipers were affecting nearby area businesses. Nothing happened there, just move along.
Two miles up from for this intrepid news reporter was what is our current crime scene, the Seven Corners Shopping Center, in Seven Corners. This part of Fairfax County is called Seven Corners, because from a single point there are seven roads radiating away from the center. The shopping center is bounded by two of those roads, plus a residential street (Patrick Henry Drive) that one can use to bypass the Seven Corners intersection for access to I-66 at exit 69 [Lee Highway/Washington Blvd. or Sycamore Street). The shopping center is also in a very hilly place. In fact, even though this is a strip-mall, it has two levels, the lower one being the Arlington Blvd. side, where our victim was shot. On the nearby hills, there are garden apartments, shielded by woods, another shopping center (on Wilson Blvd., another one of the seven roads out), two more shopping centers (at level with Arlington Blvd., on Arlington Blvd. & Patrick Henry Dr.). Needless to say, there were a lot of good places to take a shot. Though this time, there may be witnesses who seen a license plate. (Sadly, this is a largely Hispanic neighborhood, and there was a grand total of one Spanish speaking operator at the phones, so tips may have been lost.)
Also, on the upper level of Seven Corners Shopping Center, there's a Michaels craft store. An interesting note in this is that at least three shootings occurred near one of these stores.
I'm going to try to leave the speculation to others, though. Saturday night, Charles Krauthammer on Inside Washington noted that almost no one is thinking that this is terrorism, which goes to show that he isn't looking through the internet. It's practically the default assumption for most. There are some pretty good reasons for some to believe this (that the shooter isn't following a pattern of tracking targets he knows -- as far as we know, the choice of the Washington DC area, the style of murder and choice of weapon). I'm still disinclined to believe organized terrorism, the systematic use of terror as means of coercion by groups like Al Qaeda, etc., because for the coercion part to work, people have to be able to link the killings to something, anything. For it to work as terrorism, someone is going to have to either take credit for it, or mention some cause or something. The Al Qaeda gang took credit for the attacks on the ship in the middle east, and in Indonesia in their typical "if America would stop its evil ways, Allah would stop ordaining the terror" fashion. If people can't connect the fear with something, anything, it fails as a means of terrorism. You can wreck the economy, ruin morale and what not with these types of stunts, but it really means nothing unless you can take credit. Plus this is still a more inefficient means of doing all of that, than say a big bomb in a public square, like, let's say, in Bali.
But here I am speculating, and I said that I wouldn't. Nothing more for the night.
Two miles up from for this intrepid news reporter was what is our current crime scene, the Seven Corners Shopping Center, in Seven Corners. This part of Fairfax County is called Seven Corners, because from a single point there are seven roads radiating away from the center. The shopping center is bounded by two of those roads, plus a residential street (Patrick Henry Drive) that one can use to bypass the Seven Corners intersection for access to I-66 at exit 69 [Lee Highway/Washington Blvd. or Sycamore Street). The shopping center is also in a very hilly place. In fact, even though this is a strip-mall, it has two levels, the lower one being the Arlington Blvd. side, where our victim was shot. On the nearby hills, there are garden apartments, shielded by woods, another shopping center (on Wilson Blvd., another one of the seven roads out), two more shopping centers (at level with Arlington Blvd., on Arlington Blvd. & Patrick Henry Dr.). Needless to say, there were a lot of good places to take a shot. Though this time, there may be witnesses who seen a license plate. (Sadly, this is a largely Hispanic neighborhood, and there was a grand total of one Spanish speaking operator at the phones, so tips may have been lost.)
Also, on the upper level of Seven Corners Shopping Center, there's a Michaels craft store. An interesting note in this is that at least three shootings occurred near one of these stores.
I'm going to try to leave the speculation to others, though. Saturday night, Charles Krauthammer on Inside Washington noted that almost no one is thinking that this is terrorism, which goes to show that he isn't looking through the internet. It's practically the default assumption for most. There are some pretty good reasons for some to believe this (that the shooter isn't following a pattern of tracking targets he knows -- as far as we know, the choice of the Washington DC area, the style of murder and choice of weapon). I'm still disinclined to believe organized terrorism, the systematic use of terror as means of coercion by groups like Al Qaeda, etc., because for the coercion part to work, people have to be able to link the killings to something, anything. For it to work as terrorism, someone is going to have to either take credit for it, or mention some cause or something. The Al Qaeda gang took credit for the attacks on the ship in the middle east, and in Indonesia in their typical "if America would stop its evil ways, Allah would stop ordaining the terror" fashion. If people can't connect the fear with something, anything, it fails as a means of terrorism. You can wreck the economy, ruin morale and what not with these types of stunts, but it really means nothing unless you can take credit. Plus this is still a more inefficient means of doing all of that, than say a big bomb in a public square, like, let's say, in Bali.
But here I am speculating, and I said that I wouldn't. Nothing more for the night.