Journal Assignment Unit 7.

The Beltway Sniper Case. Methods and Resources.

            The Beltway Sniper case in 2002 used a lot of resources:

• Manpower: According with Michael Schaffer in his article for the US News and World Report there were 75 FBI staff members manning the phones, plus the support of the Maryland Police.
• Call Tip Lines: A smorgasbord of calls. In one day 12000 calls were logged. This means a lot of information. The trick is in deciding what is bogus and what is a real tip.
• Media Exposure: The media in this type of cases can be your ally or enemy depending in the information being published.
   

These three items were, in my opinion, the ones that were the most important to the successful conclusion of this case. Consider: if the manpower is not adequate, the follow-up of investigative leads is a very slow and cumbersome process with no end in sight; the call lines provided the prime materials for the investigators to conduct searches and interviews with people of interest. The one downside is the sheer amount of tips and the real difficulty of discerning the gold from the dross, and finally, the media, when doing their jobs the media can be used by the police or FBI investigators to, in some ways, shape the narrative,(for good or bad) by passing selected tidbits of information that can, when disseminated,  provoke a response from the perpetrators or nudge them into establishing lines of communication that can lead in some cases, to committing errors that will make their apprehension easier.