There is a guy on the loose who told a bank teller, while making a 5-figure withdrawal, that he is going to hunt down and kill the President. The bank teller called the police, and the Secret Service got on it immediately. The suspect is still loose, and law enforcement are looking for him in a number of states.
Yes, he's probably a nut, and a stupid one at that. But poisonous spiders and snakes are stupid and they still manage to bite. We can't take any chances.
We need to do our part to look out for this guy. With enough people looking, someone is bound to get lucky and bring him in.
Yes this has been diaried twice in the late night hours, but once more won't hurt. Details below the fold.
(Pardon my crappy writing style, I'm trying to do this while getting equipment ready for a client's site today and I may not be able to stick around to comment.)
(NOTE: Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies have not formally or otherwise requested that citizens start looking for this guy, but they haven't said No either, and the more eyes open, the better.)
Suspect's name is Daniel James Murray.
Vehicle is a blue 2001 Buick LeSabre, New York license plate ERL 1445. To see what a 2001 LeSabre looks like, use Google image search (I don't have time to post a picture).
Federal charges have been filed. The Secret Service and various other law enforcement agencies are looking for him right now.
Suspect is from New York, but other states where the authorities think he could be include include Oklahoma, California, Utah, Georgia, or Texas. Realistically he could be anywhere, rural or urban.
He may have about $10k in cash on him, and he is known to have eight or so firearms, so he is probably armed (his vehicle and his person).
We have more than 200,000 readers here, so if even a fraction of us write down the car info and keep our eyes open, that counts for something.
If law enforcemnt releases a picture, print it out and keep it with you.
Here's some info I posted in another diary about how to spot someone even if they have attempted to disguise themselves or change their appearance.
The underlying structure of the face does not change much over time: the relative positions of eyes, nose, mouth, ears. These elements are fairly unique for each person, and they are rarely perfectly symmetrical.
Look at the placement of the suspect's eyes. In particular look at them relative to the position of the suspect's nose. Also look at the position of the eyes relative to the vertical height of the face from bottom of chin to top of head.
Next, look at the position of the suspect's ears relative to his eyes. The shape of the ears changes with age, so what you're looking for here, again, is position relative to another landmark, the eyes.
Next, look at the suspect's mouth and note the distance from the bottom of his nose to his lips; the centerline of the lips may be a useful landmark also.
The above details are difficult to impossible to alter or disguise. Don't let hair color, hair length/style, or facial hair distract you from the basics above.
What to do if you see the guy or his car.
Do not try to make contact with the suspect, he is armed and dangerous.
Call 9-1-1 preferably from a land-line phone. If you call from a cellular phone, be prepared to give your location in terms of street and cross-street, as well as the location of the suspect.
When the 9-1-1 dispatcher answers, identify yourself by name (you can always ask, later on, that they delete your name from any public record) and say that you believe you have seen someone who is wanted by the Secret Service for making assassination threats.
If we all keep our eyes open, we are adding to the probability that someone will see this guy and make the phone call that results in him getting caught before he can do any harm.
We are the new national neighborhood watch.
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Update & follow-up Saturday night 06 June 2009
The suspect was caught in Utah on Saturday. Apparently he has a significant history of psychiatric illness.
http://www.timesunion.com/...
Read the above and check it against diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, for example:
http://counsellingresource.com/...
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Re. people who criticized this diary due to not having links to external sources:
Yes, its a valid criticism that someone could have posted a wild goose chase or unsubstantiated accusations against someone who is factually innocent.
The reason I posted this diary at all was to be sure that the suspect's details were up during the time of day when dKos readership is highest. I had a major project to do at work on Friday, with a hard time-line, so I didn't have time to do the follow-up; and my browser was jammed and I didn't have time to clean that up well enough that I could start posting links to the news stories without spending ten minutes per link going back and forth between jammed screens.
So I was posting under bad circumstances to begin with, and frankly did a pretty poor job of it. If you compare my writing in the diary to my usual standard of writing, even in comments, it's even more obvious.
However it did manage to get rec-listed and nearly 900 people in the poll said they would be keeping an eye out for the suspect. The fact of 900 extra pairs of eyes and ears counts for something.
Realistically I was not expecting that someone from dKos would get lucky and be the one to make the phone call to bring this guy in. We have 200,000 readers, but at any given time, maybe 20,000 will see the current diary list at all, and maybe 2,000 will read something on the rec list, and maybe as many as 200 will read something that isn't on the rec list.
What I was expecting, and what I think we achieved, was to get a decent number of people engaged. "Nearly 900" could be seen as a drop in the bucket on a national scale, but it's still worth something.
And the point of that is, the more people looking out for a badguy, the greater the chances of catching him quickly before he can harm anyone (whether his intended target or some random passerby).
The reason that's important is, when dealing with rightie-winger terrorism, the probability of them getting caught and swiftly prosecuted is what counts in terms of deterrence. An Eric Rudolph who does a bombing and then successfully evades the law for years, becomes a folk hero to others like him, and encourages them. A Timothy McVeigh who gets captured the same day, becomes a message that there's no escaping justice, and that discourages others who might have tried something similar.
The message to would-be terrorists and assassins has got to be: don't you even dare, because America will be looking for you, and you will be caught and prosecuted. Regardless of who is in office or what is the ideology, all of us have an interest in putting a stop to violent crime, and in particular we all have an interest as Americans in protecting our system of government from violent attacks.
So thanks to everyone who said they'd keep an eye open; this won't be the last time; and from here our task is to encourage those around us to get involved whenever something comes up.