Interesting article
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military Wednesday joined the search for the Washington-area sniper who has killed nine people and wounded two others since October 2.
The Pentagon said it would allow special Army aircraft to be used in the hunt for the sniper around the clock.
CNN's Leon Harris spoke Wednesday with retired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Eric Haney, a 20-year military veteran who has visited nine sniper crime scenes, for his insight into the attacks. Haney is a founding member of the elite Delta Force Special Operations unit and author of the book "Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit."
HARRIS: What struck you most about the crime scenes?
HANEY: The meticulous care with which the shooters are selecting the sites from which to shoot -- that's more important than anything else to them -- and the ability to immediately leave the area unobtrusively once they've taken the shot.
HARRIS: But what have you learned then about these getaways? Because we were talking about this [Tuesday] quite a bit, and it seems to be mystifying most of the experts we've talked to so far. You think you know how they're getting away?
HANEY: Well certainly, they're just driving away, but there's a bit of deception involved here. In most all of the sites that I've looked at, the shooting takes place near a major intersection just away from an interstate, and I think that's the deception. The original police idea is they're jumping on the interstate and making their getaway.
I don't believe so. I think they're using smaller roads and feeder roads. Because one thing that greatly struck me is the ability of this person, these people, to understand the little alleys and the back ways around the strip malls because this is where the shootings are taking place.
In my own mind, I think the person is probably a delivery driver. They've had a lot of experience around the area. And the fact that the Michaels store played a part, was nearby in at least four of them that I looked at, tells me the person may have been a delivery driver. He was familiar with Michaels. He knows these small strip mall areas; he knows the little back roads and exactly where to go from there.
HARRIS: Speaking of where to go, I read somewhere that you said that you believe these guys are taking right-hand turns wherever they go?
HANEY: I'm positive of it. The way they set up for the shot, it's positioned so that they -- once the shot is taken -- the driver then puts the vehicle in gear, he pulls forward, and within 20 feet he's making a right-hand turn onto one little feeder lane. When they come out to the first road, they make a right-hand turn so they never have to stop for traffic. They never have to cross a lane.
HARRIS: Which would explain the situation that happened with the last shooting Monday night in Falls Church, Virginia, where at that Seven Corners area -- which is such a very congested area with all the stop lights that were there -- the stop lights did not pose a problem.
HANEY: And also, people focus on the victim when they hit the ground. You're not looking outward. In most of these cases, the shots have been fired from inside a vehicle, which muffles the sound. So outside, anyone -- the only thing they'll hear is just sort of a pronounced thump, nothing that they associate with a rifle shot.
HARRIS: Well considering that you're talking about that level of planning, that intricate level of consideration of every single level here, you don't think this was someone with special training, with military training?
HANEY: There's nothing in the military that teaches that at the very levels that we work at. This is cleverness. Now there's always a great deal of cleverness associated with evil.
What they're doing most often -- not in every case there -- some of them have a little bit of difference, but there's a great commonality to them. In most of the cases of the strip mall shootings, they pull to the end of a lane. Now think of when you pull into a strip mall or any parking area at your grocery store, you have the lanes that you drive down with the marked parking spaces left and right.
They pull to the far end of the parking lot, where people tend not to want to park. Everyone wants to park upfront. They position their vehicle so that the rear of the vehicle faces down a lane. People walk down those same lanes that you drive. Think of it, when you walk to the store. So as they either get out of their car and walk to the store or they're walking back to their car, all the shooter has to do is take the shot at a person walking straight toward him or straight away.
And for all appearance representation for the shot, it's a person standing still. And all events had a little more -- that first shot at the Michaels store, where there's a bullet hole in the window about 6 feet 4 inches above the ground.
And everyone said he shot a window, why? He didn't shoot a window; he shot at a person and missed. There was one person walking around in that area who heard the sharp sonic crack of a bullet go by but didn't recognize what it was, and they lived through it.
HARRIS: What can it do to a human body? You say that even if that was to hit a window, it would make a small hole?
HANEY: It makes a tiny hole. When this round goes through glass or something hard that thin, it can't dump all of its energy, which it does in a human body.
HARRIS: Is the amount of gunpowder in a .223-caliber round more than the amount of gunpowder in a .22-caliber round, which is about the same size?
HANEY: Well, yes, it has a lot more power. It leaves the muzzle at a much, much faster velocity. It leaves the muzzle at better than 3,200 feet per second. So it has a lot of energy.
But in that first shot at Michaels, what I surmised was that was at one of the longest ranges he attempted a shot, which was 100 meters. Since [then], he has never attempted a shot at 100 meters at a moving person.
In the other cases, the gentleman shot in Manassas, [Virginia] -- at the gas station -- was shot from across the road at 100 meters. He was standing still. Anyone else who has been moving has been shot at 50 meters.
HARRIS: What about the 13-year-old boy shot at a school in Bowie, Maryland?
HANEY: The little boy was walking straight toward the shooter, and the range was 75 meters, and the shooter was lying on the ground. If he intended to kill the little boy, he shot low. My view is that he intended to severely wound the child, which is what he did. There's nothing more damaging than a gut shot, an abdomen shot.
The only reason the little boy lived was his aunt was right there. She knew what had happened, and he was so close to a hospital. Usually that kind of wound -- particularly if it cuts the stomach, and the doctors will tell you about that -- is so devastating that had it lasted another 20 minutes, he would not have survived.
HARRIS: Have you seen or heard anything that would dissuade you from believing that there were two people involved here?
HANEY: No, I'm convinced there are two. They're operating in tandem. One shoots while the other either drives the vehicle and is sitting in the driver's seat watching. He's also pulling security. He tells the shooter, "OK, no one's nearby us right now. When you have a person in your sights, take the shot." Then when the shot is fired, the driver slips it into gear, and they unobtrusively pull way. Inside of 20 seconds, they're a couple of blocks away.
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