10/26/02 10:32:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Two articles here, trying to determine if they're talking about the same
guy. I found the highlighted comment in the first article below to
be VERY revealing - my own comment on that is in parentheses...
The more I review the whole sniper scenario and it's wrap-up, the stinkier
it becomes.
From AP:
In ironic twist, driver of white van key to arrests
Unidentified motorist calls police about suspect car
By Allen G. Breed
The Associated Press
October 24, 2002, 12:48 PM EDT
MYERSVILLE -- After three weeks of looking out for a shadowy killer in a white van, Larry Blank spotted just such a van today at the Interstate 70 rest area where he works as an attendant.
When Blank went up to the vehicle about 1 a.m., he found the driver was calling police.
"I stepped inside his vehicle, and we locked ourselves in the car while he was on the cell phone," Blank said.
Blank said the driver was reporting a blue Chevrolet Caprice that fit the description of a car that investigators said late Wednesday they were seeking in the deadly Washington-area sniper attacks.
The Caprice was parked along a tree line across from the bathrooms, under a street light, Blank said. (Gee, how convenient! Just what a wanted killer would do...)
Federal and state officials swooped in and arrested two men wanted for questioning in the attacks. The rest area 50 miles northwest of Washington was soon awash in flashing, blue police lights.
Blank, 52, of Hagerstown, said the tipster, whose name he did not know, seemed to enjoy a little bit of payback for all the suspicion cast on white van drivers in the Washington area during the search for the sniper. Witnesses had described white trucks and vans they saw leaving shooting scenes.
"He was riding around in a white van," Blank said. "He got tired of people staring at him, and then he saw this car and recognized it and reported it."
With news of the arrests filling the airwaves, truckers blew their horns as they passed by the rest stop.
So many TV satellite trucks filled the eastbound Myersville rest stop, across the interstate from where the men were arrested, that trucker Harry Pearsall had to park in the breakdown lane just beyond the exit.
The Rocky Point, N.C., man, who was hauling empty apple juice bottles from Cincinnati to Baltimore, said he had tried to fill his gas tank before hitting Maryland because of fear of the sniper.
"I'm just hoping that it's the right one, just hoping this is over," Pearsall said. "It's just a matter of having to go in a certain area and feeling a certain way. That's kind of rough, all the tension and stuff involved."
Al Feldstein, an employee at the Maryland Department of Planning, stopped at the eastbound rest area to use the bathroom on his way to Baltimore.
Looking at the police lights and TV cameras across the highway, Feldstein said he couldn't help but think about the sniper's victims.
"I'm trying to feel relief for the people in the metropolitan areas," said Feldstein. "Nothing is conclusive yet. You just keep your fingers crossed."
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
Reuters version:
Truck Driver Modest About Sniper Suspects Capture
10-24-2
FREDERICK, Md. (Reuters) - When Ron Lantz pulled his truck into a Maryland rest stop off I-70 early on Thursday, something just clicked.
The truck driver spotted a blue Chevrolet Caprice with New Jersey tags in the parking lot off the Maryland interstate highway, and recalled the police news conference he had just heard in the case of the Washington area sniper who has killed 10 and seriously wounded three since Oct. 2.
"I pulled in. I'd heard those bozos talking about the description of the car, the make of the car, the model of the car, the license plate number," Lantz told CNN. "I pulled in with another driver behind me. I told the other driver that car looked kind of obvious."
Lantz confirmed the car's description with a radio station and then called police on 911.
They instructed Lantz to wait for state troopers to arrive but to block the Chevy in with their vehicles.
The unassuming truck driver waited 15 nerve-racking minutes until the authorities arrived.
"I just sat there and waited ... It was a long 15 minutes," Lantz said.
At one point, he said he started to walk to the restrooms, but then returned to his truck when he saw there were two people inside the car. He said he felt safer inside his cab.
But Lantz refused to call himself a hero in a case that has vexed and terrified the region for three weeks.
"I'm no hero. I don't even want to be classified as a hero. Just let it go like it is. I did my job," he said.
Just five runs from retirement, Lantz seemed unimpressed by the possibility of a financial windfall for his police work.
"I know there's a sizable reward. ... If I had the money, I'd probably take it and give it to the people who were shot," he said.
posted on Rense:
http://www.rense.com/general31/snip.htm