The D.C. Sniper Case of 2002: A Chilling Chronicle of Random Killings

Name Institutional Affiliations Date CRJU 412 Criminal Investigation Case Summary Report: The D.C. Sniper Case of 2002 Identify the subject and victims involved The D.C. sniper case also referred to as the Beltway sniper attack is a criminal case that dates back in October 2002. This sniper attack happened within a span of three weeks through a series of well coordinated shooting throughout Washington Metropolitan area including District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The main subjects involved in this case were John Allen Muhammad (Aged 41 years at the time of the attack) and Lee Boyd Malvo (Aged 17 at the time) (Koen and Jackson, 2018). The two subjects were responsible of a series of shooting that claimed ten lives and left several others injured. It is clear that the victims in this case were randomly targeted individuals that included men, women and children engaging with their daily chores/lives. It is an attack that caused widespread panic and fear in the said region from Wednesday the 2nd day of October 2002 until the 24th day of the same month when the two subjects were handed over to the State police. Discuss pertinent information about the case The D.C. Sniper criminal case proved a series of well coordinated shooting that started some few minutes after 6 P.M. that fateful Wednesday, October 2nd 2002. A fifty five year old James Martin drove into the parking lot of the Shoppers Food Warehouse at 2201 Randolph Road at around 6.02 P.M. while on his way home from work and while walking towards the entrance one of the case subject shot him and fell face down (Censer, 2010). Since that day, the subjects took down other nine lives and injured three people while their random shootings inflicted fear and tension throughout Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for a period of three weeks. It is a case that stands out as among the most notorious with troubling instances of random violent acts in the American history. The case had two main perpetrators: John Allen Mohammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. At the time of the attacks, Muhammad was an adult male aged 41 years while his counterpart was a minor of 17 years. Boyd was a vulnerable teenager that was manipulated into this evil practice by Muhammad who served as the mastermind behind the attacks (Herberman et al., 2016). The timeline of the attacks was less than a month though their impact remains well defined in the American history. The D.C. Sniper attacks took a period of three weeks that began on October 2nd and terminated on October 24th 2002. The two case subjects engaged in a series of shootings in different locations throughout Washington D.C. metropolitan area including District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The perpetrators used powerful firearms that would make perfect and successful shootings from a distance. In specific, Muhammad and Malvo used high-powered Bushmaster XM-15 rifle giving them an opportunity to shoot their targets from a concealed position at a distance (Gartenstein-Ross and Trombly, 2012). During the attacks, the two hide in the trunk of a car where they could open the trunk slightly and fire the shots targeting random individuals. Their random targets made it a challenge for law enforcers to predict