Man Sought in Sniper Case; Search Spreads

WASHINGTON -- Law enforcement task force officials hunting the Washington-area killer issued an arrest warrant late Wednesday night for an “armed and extremely dangerous” firearms suspect, then issued another veiled plea to the slayer.

Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose, who heads the sniper task force, said police issued an alert for John Allen Muhammad, sought on “alleged violation of federal firearms laws.” Muhammad, 42, was described as black, 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds.

Moose cautioned that Muhammad’s arrest warrant “was not related to the recent shootings under investigation” by the task force, but that Muhammad “may have information material to our investigation.” At the same time, Moose spoke directly to the killer, who cryptically told police he wanted to be described as caught “like a duck in a noose.”

Issuing a photograph showing a clean-shaven man with a cropped haircut, the chief said Muhammad might be accompanied by a 17-year-old boy.

Muhammad, who also calls himself John Allen Williams, had served in the military, a federal official said. The Pierce County, Wash., Sheriff’s Office said Muhammad was once stationed at Ft. Lewis, an Army post south of Tacoma, Wash. -- a base renowned for its training for Army Rangers and snipers.

Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a Ft. Lewis spokesman, said that the base has been asked by the FBI for assistance and “we are cooperating in any way we can.”

Just hours earlier, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents searched for traces of ammunition in the backyard of a house in Tacoma as part of the murder probe across the country in the Washington, D.C., area. The capital sniper has killed 10 and wounded three since Oct. 2.

A federal law enforcement official confirmed Wednesday night that task force investigators have been focusing on domestic terrorism as a potential motivating factor in the killings, and said that the search in Tacoma was part of that possibility. “Among competing theories, domestic terror is being strongly considered,” the official said.

The official said there is no evidence that the killings are linked to any domestic terrorist group. Instead, investigators are examining the premise that the killers may be motivated by a desire to embarrass law enforcement authorities, killing at will in an effort to prove that the government’s counter-terrorism efforts since the Sept. 11 attacks are porous and easily evaded.

“The theory is that these are people who think they’re smarter than the government,” the official said. “It’s domestic terror in idea, not organization, the sense that someone is reacting to the new focus on counter-terrorism and trying to prove that he or they can outsmart us.”

Even amid the new flurry of investigative action, Moose took care to address the elusive sniper who killed again Tuesday in Montgomery County, felling a bus driver, 35, with his signature long-distance single rifle shot.

Moose hinted that police contacts with the sniper had been riddled with breakdowns. He urged the suspect to be patient and stay in touch.

“We understand that you communicated with us by calling several different locations,” Moose said. “Our inability to communicate has been a concern to us, as well as it has been for you. You have indicated that you wanted us to do and say certain things.”

Moose repeated a quote the killer demanded, saying: “You’ve asked us to say, quote, We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose. End quote. We understand that hearing us saying this is important to you. However, we want you to know how difficult it has been to know what you want because you have chosen to use only notes, indirect messages and calls to other jurisdictions.

“If you are reluctant to contact us, be assured that we remain ready to talk directly with you,” Moose said. “Our word is our bond.”

FBI agents also swept into a Bellingham, Wash., high school Wednesday, seeking possible connections to the sniper case, local officials confirmed. Mayor Mark Asmundson said the FBI had told Bellingham police they needed information on two people -- a male teenager who reportedly briefly attended the school, and an older man. Neither lived in the Bellingham area for long, and left the area about nine months ago, the mayor said. It was unclear Wednesday night if Muhammad was one of those.

Wednesday’s search by FBI and ATF agents in the suburban Tacoma neighborhood was the latest in a series of searches that have been conducted around the country in recent weeks as part of the sniper task force probe, the federal law enforcement official said.

The official said the lead that brought investigators to Tacoma was developed by task force detectives working to solve the killings that have traumatized the nation’s capital.

Investigators sawed off a tree trunk in the backyard of the house, wrapped it in plastic and hauled it away during the search, which began Wednesday afternoon. Neighbors on Proctor Street said the agents were apparently looking for bullet fragments.

Melissa Mallon, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Seattle office, said that the current landlord and the tenant of the house consented to the search. Mallon would not talk about the search, but acknowledged that agents were interested in “the outside perimeter.”

A neighbor, Army Pfc. Christopher Waters, 23, said he called the police early this year to report hearing nightly bursts of “high-powered rifle fire” that went on for about a month. Waters, who lives across the street from the property that was searched, said he couldn’t pinpoint the gunfire to that house.

In the Alabama capital of Montgomery, Mayor Bobby Bright said he was told federal authorities were investigating a Sept. 21 fatal shooting at a liquor store that may be linked to the sniper. One woman was killed and another wounded as they walked to their cars after locking up the store. No one has been arrested.

Meanwhile, officials said that more than 1,300 federal agents have been redeployed from throughout the nation and the world in the sniper hunt. Maryland’s governor was considering calling out the National Guard to provide protection for voters on election day, as the wrenching drama entered its fourth week.

Ballistic experts examining evidence from the body of bus driver Conrad E. Johnson and from the latest slaying scene, which investigators continued to comb Wednesday, confirmed that he was the 13th victim of a series of attacks in which the most distinct common denominator is their ability to maximize public dread. Johnson was killed with a single shot to the abdomen.

Amid late-afternoon searches for a white box truck that again shut down major commuter arteries, police investigating the latest shooting issued yet another round of urgent appeals for witnesses. Specifically, they called on undocumented immigrants in suburban Aspen Hill, Md., who may have seen Tuesday’s slaying to come forward. The Immigration and Naturalization Service assured them they would not risk deportation.

Attempts by the hunters and the hunted to establish a dialogue also continued Wednesday, as federal officials confirmed key details indicating that those attempts may have been hampered by the probe itself -- a massive, plodding and often unwieldy effort spanning two states, a federal district and a half-dozen counties.

A tip line that investigators set up soon after the killings began in suburban Montgomery County, Md., has been jammed with more than 70,000 calls in three weeks, and Gary M. Bald, who heads the FBI’s Baltimore office, said Wednesday: “It’s not unexpected that from time to time the calls coming in will overtax the system.”

A letter left near the Virginia roadside steakhouse where a traveler was shot by the sniper Saturday night chastised investigators for “incompetence” in ignoring a half-dozen calls to the tip line -- apparent attempts by the sniper to contact police, according to federal officials and published reports.

“Five people had to die because of it,” the letter stated, adding a demand that $10 million be deposited in a bank account or risk more “body bags,” those sources said.

Moose, who used the media to engage in a lengthy, cryptic exchange with the letter’s author on Tuesday, appeared to confirm the money demand. On Tuesday night, Moose stated: “We have researched the options you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested.

“We remain open and ready to talk to you,” he added, offering up an exclusive toll-free telephone number or a post office box to ease communication. “It is important that we do this without anyone else getting hurt.”

Although he offered few additional details in his daily briefing Wednesday, Moose suddenly scheduled another media session for 6 p.m. That briefing was postponed, a spokeswoman said, “because of developments in the case.” Of the leaked details of the letter left behind Saturday night -- and a second letter reportedly found at the scene of Tuesday’s killing -- Moose said, “I don’t know where all that is coming from.

“Any calls to the tip line are held in the strictest of confidentiality,” he said. “To verify or not verify anything would not be appropriate.”

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, visited the task force headquarters in Rockville, Md., on Wednesday and asserted that “cooperation is extraordinary” among the many agencies.

“The investigators on the case have the full support of just about every federal agency there is, and we’re making progress and we will get this individual,” Mueller added. He, too, provided no details.

Mueller’s boss also weighed in Wednesday.

Describing the sniper as “the coldblooded killer running around in the community in Washington,” President Bush told a meeting on cyber-safety at the White House that the killings have had an effect on almost every life in every home in the region -- including his own.

“It’s on people’s minds here, and I’m worried about it,” Bush told the group. “A lot of people are worried about it. We’ve got a lot of moms worried about it, fathers worried about it.”

Local officials tried to put up a defiant front.

“We are seeing a real determination, resolve and even strength on the part of the community,” said Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, who noted that bus drivers and other county employees showed up for work Wednesday, some of them on their day off. “We’re getting through this together.”

But attendance was down at schools throughout the Washington area -- some reporting double the normal absenteeism rates -- and many students who did attend were dropped off and picked up by their parents, rather than walk or ride a bus.

If the killings continue until election day, Nov. 5, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening said he would consider posting National Guard troops at polling stations to assure nervous voters. State officials said it was the first time in memory that the state would call up the National Guard for an election.

And addressing that general and spreading angst, Bush added Wednesday: “We’ve got to do something about it, and we are.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer earlier laid out a laundry list of just what the federal government is doing. In all, he said, it has contributed 454 agents, 59 inspectors and nine sniffer-dogs and handlers from the ATF, 600 FBI personnel and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals Service.

The U.S. Customs Service has provided the sniper task force with three helicopters, along with flight crews. The Defense Department has “provided the air platforms to try to catch the killer” -- surveillance aircraft, Fleischer said. And the Department of Education is offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in discretionary grants to affected school districts in Maryland and Virginia, money that can be used for anything from security to counseling.

Separately, FBI officials said their 600 agents now dedicated to the sniper case were drawn from across the mid-Atlantic seaboard -- field offices in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington and Newark, N.J., among others. An ATF spokesman said his bureau drew its forces with a range of specialties from offices across the U.S. and around the world. The ATF’s ballistics lab in Rockville, the Montgomery County seat, also has documented the critical evidence chain in the case by positively connecting the bullet fragments or casings that have linked the attacks.

But some of the federal assistance in the case has been decidedly low-tech. The tip line that federal officials set up, (888) 324-9800, was clogged throughout the day Wednesday, with many calls hitting a busy signal. And the system for recording the tips and distributing the information throughout the vast network of investigators on the case, a system dubbed Rapid Start, relies on some distinctly mid-20th century methods.

Telephone workers, who include FBI trainees and others assigned to boiler rooms, record each tip on a triplicate form that uses carbon paper and is sorted for various levels of priority and for various field offices.

The agency then dispatches drivers to take the tip sheets to centers in Montgomery County, Fairfax County, Va., and Richmond, Va.

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Times staff writers James Gerstenzang, John Hendren, Josh Meyer, Peter Y. Hong and Arianne Aryanpur contributed to this report.