Reflecting on Black Men as Snipers

The recent sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C. area made for a lot of TV watching. It wasn't because the story was always riveting or the news was always breaking. In fact, more often than not, the news briefings held by Police Chief Charles A. Moose of Montgomery County, Md., were uninformative. 

And yet, even as the shooters' range expanded to other jurisdictions and even as the timing of attacks was variable, Moose would, every few hours, make his way to the microphone at the Montgomery "command center," surrounded by reporters, camera crews, support staff and law enforcement types, to tell us what we already knew: The killer was still at large. The whole business had become "personal." Someone had seen a white van or a white box truck, somewhere.

As October wore on, and frightened locals were increasingly testy concerning what the cops did or didn't know, how they were handling the case, and what they were saying publicly, or leaking or refusing to leak to the camped-out press, Moose kept on. Now, in hindsight, the reasons for his cryptic tactics seem multiple and complex. You know that he was communicating more or less directly with the killer ("The person you called could not hear everything you said; the audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand") and responding to notes left at crime scenes ("Our word is our bond"). 

Exactly what Moose knew or when he knew it may never become completely known, but during those difficult 23 days, the emotional toll on him was visible daily. As he now describes the strategy, post-suspects-capture, "I'll talk to the devil himself to keep another person alive."

He wasn't the only one doing a lot of talking, of course. Television news shows trotted out legions of "profilers," professional, retired, amateur and increasingly annoying, lining up on TV and in print to tell everyone how to imagine the killer. Their occupations were varied -- legal correspondents, cable news hosts, professors, reporters, columnists, former lawyers, current lawyers, terrorism experts, former employees of the FBI, former cops and, in one sensational instance, even a former serial killer: David Berkowitz, interviewed by the Fox News Channel's ever intrepid, ever misguided Rita Cosby.

For all the (ratings-bumping) brouhaha that greeted Cosby's ostensible coup, the Son of Sam's insights were much like everyone else's -- the killer was shooting from a distance, he was moving about, he was angry. For all the lack of available information, these authorities and specialists dutifully wore their suits, appeared against book-lined backdrops or in maps-and-graphics-equipped studios, to proclaim what everyone knew, or worse, what they had no substantive grounds for asserting: The killer was white, male, of a certain age and station. He was taunting police, he wanted to get caught. He was ingenious, he was insane. He was a terrorist, an expert sniper, an expert first-person video game player, indicated because he used that odious and supremely unimaginative phrase, "I am god."

A few "news" shows included discussions of the "news" coverage. Was the coverage excessive and sensational? Was it fear-mongering? Ratings-mongering? Was it superseding other news? Was all this profiling bogus? (Recall how many times you heard someone set up his -- and it was mostly "his" -- opinion by saying, "Well, I don't have all the facts, but ...")

In most areas around the United States, the story was awful and upsetting -- and not the only news. Still, the cable news stations took it up as if it was, deploying expensive crosshairs graphics, interrupting themselves to "break" news that wasn't new. For Donahue, Jerry Nachman, Connie Chung, Bill O'Reilly, Dan Abrams, Geraldo, John Walsh, Chris Matthews, et. al., it was the story of the minute for almost a month, and that meant that the teams assembled beneath the Montgomery tents came from all over.