Like a Duck in a Noose:
Lessons for White Advocates from the 2002 DC Sniper Attacks

John Lee Malvo (left) and John Allen Muhammad murdered 17 people and wounded 10 others while terrorizing the DC area in 2002.

3,510 words

After returning home from a Christmas party in 2021, I turned the dome light on in my car as I prepared to get out. Up to that point, I’d always kept it off, entering and leaving my automobile at night in complete blackout. I had adopted this tactical lifestyle starting in October 2002, when the area around Washington, DC was being terrorized by the sniper team of John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo. I was deployed overseas with the military at the time, but I followed the case closely, and it wasn’t until nearly two decades had passed that I realized how much the shootings had affected me.

The noticed sniper shootings

The first shot taken in the sniper spree was a miss. On the evening of October 2, 2002 a bullet was fired into the window of a crafts shop, but it seemed so random that nobody made a fuss, and was only the subject of an ordinary police report. Then, James Martin, a government employee, was shot in the head in a nearby supermarket parking lot. Detectives investigating Martin’s murder decided to go back to the earlier shooting and take a closer look.

At the crafts shop, a pizza deliveryman and Army veteran named Steve Cribbin had seen something: A blue car had driven across the parking lot shortly after he heard a loud boom that he recognized as a rifle report. He took note of the car because it was the only thing moving at the time, observing two laughing sub-Saharan men in the car, but he was unable to identify the car’s make and model. The police didn’t think the bullet could have come from the area the car was seen in. It later turned out, however, that Cribbin had seen the snipers.

Shortly after the Martin shooting, a police officer ran the license plate numbers on Muhammad’s car, discovering that it was what law enforcement calls a “felony car”: It had tinted windows and was not well-maintained. (For our European readers, these types of cars have an Afro look and are often driven by young, sub-Saharan men who most often use them to commit felonies against other young, sub-Saharan men driving similar cars.) But there were no warrants out for the plate number.

Throughout the sniper spree, police would run the plates on Muhammad’s car several times. He was even pulled over for running a stop sign, but the vital clue given by Cribbin never came to the attention of investigators, his report being buried under the flood of data which came into the Sherriff’s department in the following days.

The sniper killings became more broadly noticed on October 3. People became aware that a sniper spree was underway when landscaper James Buchanan was shot while on a riding lawn mower. The bystander who phoned in to 911 dispatchers thought that Buchanan had been injured as a result of the mower exploding. But approximately a half-hour later taxi driver Prem Kumar Walekar was shot while pumping gas. A doctor was on the scene at the time of the shooting, but it was still not enough to save the man’s life. Minutes later, Sarah Ramos, a highly-educated immigrant from El Salvador who was nevertheless working as a housemaid in the area, was shot in the head. Bystanders had initially thought she had shot herself. Then, a little more than an hour later, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera was slain while vacuuming out her minivan. All of the victims were shot with .223-caliber bullets.

Five people had been murdered in a single day in, and nobody knew why they had occurred or where the shots had come from. The investigation was led by Sheriff Charles Moose of Montgomery County, Maryland. He was an affirmative action hire who had been selected by the county after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had raised a ruckus about “racial profiling.”

The shootings had occurred in a highly-populated suburb of Washington, DC in a zone approximately five miles long and three miles wide. Crime rates in the area were not above average, and it was well-traveled. The shootings had even taken place in broad daylight. Yet, the only witness who offered any clues concerning the October 3 shootings was a Guatemalan named Juan Carlos Villeda who was working on a landscaping crew. He had seen a white box van with lettering on its door, which he could not read, speed away after Sarah Ramos was murdered.

Villeda’s report was accurate, but it later turned out that the truck had nothing to do with the shootings. Nevertheless, it became a major issue in the investigation. White box vans were common in the area. The media also speculated that the shooter was a “white male.” (There was the “soft bigotry of low expectations” at work there, and indeed, most sub-Saharan gunmen are lousy shots.) White box vans were continuously stopped at armed checkpoints for weeks. Investigators combed over records to try to identify someone who owned both a .223-caliber rifle and a white box van.

Muhammad and Malvo had deliberately followed a strategy to create maximum mayhem in a single area in one day in order to overwhelm police resources. It worked, and the Montgomery County Sherriff’s Department was quickly in over its head.

The unnoticed shootings

It became clear, although only in retrospect, that the Great Sioux Indian War of 1862 was part of a war of non-whites against whites that had already been ongoing before the big attack came. On 9/11 it likewise became clear, but only in retrospect, that Salafi jihadists had been aggressively waging war against the United States since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The same was true of Muhammad and Malvo’s sniper spree.

The first murder was committed by Malvo on February 16, 2002 when he shot Keenya Nicole Cook in the face with a pistol while she was standing in the doorway of her aunt’s home. Nobody know who had killed her, but Cook had an enemy: John Muhammad. Cook had encouraged Muhammad’s wife to divorce him and take their children.

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Muhammad had a checkered past and a rocky relationship with his wife. While married, he’d had several affairs and was also violent. At one point during the divorce, Muhammad had taken his children and illegally immigrated to the West Indies. He attempted to get a job there, but his credentials were obviously forged, so he began a career of creating false documents for West Indians seeking to illegally immigrate to the United States. He also entered into a relationship of sorts with Malvo’s mother at this time.

Malvo’s mother was a Jamaican immigrant who had met Muhammad in Antigua. She later went to Florida illegally, leaving Malvo with Muhammad. Malvo and Muhammad followed her, Malvo immigrating illegally. The pair then went to Washington state, where Muhammad had some local connections. Malvo was caught by the Border Patrol there but was able to abscond due to what has become known as the “catch and release” policy.

It was during this time that Muhammad taught Malvo how to shoot. Muhammad was a US Army veteran who had served in the Persian Gulf War. There have been various reports about his marksmanship skills during his time in the military, with some claiming that he qualified as a Sharpshooter and others as an Expert. It is very likely that he earned both, given that marksmanship qualifications take place all the time. A Sharpshooter in the military is a very good shot, and an Expert is even better.

During the Persian Gulf War, Muhammad was involved in an incident which foreshadowed his later violence. While in Saudi Arabia, a thermite grenade mysteriously exploded in a tent where ammunition was being stored. The resulting fire caused the ammunition to ignite, forcing the soldiers in the tent to scramble for safety. Muhammad’s Sergeant, Kip Berentson, a white man, suspected him immediately. Muhammad was involved in hostile racial attacks throughout the entire deployment. Berentson himself had had a run-in with him after Muhammad had gone to sleep in another soldier’s sleeping bag. Berentson was so alarmed by Muhammad that he kept his name, rank, and serial number on a slip of paper in his wallet for years afterwards. Although the grenade incident was investigated, Muhammad was cleared. Berentson believed that Muhammad got away with it due to his sub-Saharan ancestry.

After Malvo killed Cook, the pair headed to Arizona, where they shot Jerry Taylor while he was golfing. They moved his body off the course and covered it with leaves. That case also went cold. Interestingly, Malvo told another person after the pair had returned to Washington state that they’d killed two golfers and hidden the bodies. With the exception of the number of people who had been shot, the story was very close to what they had actually done. They practiced shooting by firing into a local synagogue; its rabbi discovered several bullet holes near where the Torah was kept. The slugs were matched to a gun used by Muhammad and Malvo.

While in Tacoma, Muhammad stole a Bushmaster AR-15, the civilian version of the military’s M-16, from a gun shop. The shop had acquired the rifle in early July 2002, and its staff did not realize it was missing until after Malvo and Muhammad were arrested.

The pair traveled to the East Coast on several occasions by various means, mostly Greyhound bus, staying with relatives. People who encountered them later claimed that the pair seemed creepy. On September 5 they shot the proprietor of an Italian restaurant in Clinton, Maryland and stole his money. They then used the money to purchase a blue Caprice from a friend of Muhammad’s in Camden, New Jersey.

Now that they had a murder machine on wheels and cash to spare, their spree kicked into overdrive. On September 21 the duo robbed a liquor store in Alabama and shot two employees. One survived, but the other, Claudine Parker, died. The police nearly captured Malvo at this time, but he slipped away. They then went to Louisiana and killed a woman as she was leaving a beauty parlor; their next stop was Atlanta, where they killed a man. Muhammad and Malvo then arrived in the DC area on October 1. Given the random nature of their previous shootings, and the fact that they had occurred across several states, it was only now that it became clear that a spree was underway.

The media circus

The subsequent DC sniper attacks took place in a media-saturated environment. After the five murders on October 3, local and national media descended on Montgomery County and went into a frenzy. Segments on the sniper attacks sometimes lasted for hours. Speculation was rampant, and everyone was on the lookout for a white boxed van.

The next shootings took place over several days, with a one man injured as far south as Ashland, Virginia. Federal law enforcement then got involved, creating considerable friction with local police, although they did provide considerable technical knowhow. Ballistics tests run by the forensics team showed that all the victims had been shot by the same gun.

The .223, known in its European classification as the 5.56 NATO, is a deadly cartridge despite its small size, and is commonly available on the civilian market. When it hits a body it spins and fragments, creating what is called a snowstorm of lead particles inside the target.

Near the location where a 13-year-old boy had been shot at a school, police found a Tarot card with the messages, “Call Me God” and “Do not release to the press.” It seemed the snipers wanted to make contact. The message was nevertheless leaked, probably by one of the investigator’s spouses, but it was reported in the garbled form of “I am God.” Other messages followed. Researchers would find that many of the messages came from the lyrics of various Afro-music songs. The snipers also attempted to contact the police directly, at one point using the cryptic phrase “like a duck in a noose.” This was a reference to an obscure story about a rabbit that wanted to catch a duck with a noose, but the duck ends up flying off and dragging the rabbit with him.

The scale of the investigation was overwhelming. Thousands of tips poured in. Jealous girlfriends accused their boyfriends, ex-wives accused their ex-husbands, crazy people confessed, and one man gave a wildly false report just so that he could get on TV; a story which perpetuated the mistaken white box van claim. He was later arrested for giving a false statement after police discovered using surveillance video that he hadn’t even been in the area of one of the shootings until after it had taken place.

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In the end, it was the snipers themselves who gave away the game. Malvo called the police and recounted the story of the shooting at the Alabama liquor store. Investigators at the scene had discovered a gun magazine with a fingerprint. The fingerprint was not in the Alabama database, but federal agents discovered that they matched Malvo’s. His prints were on file with immigration officials.

This in turn brought Robert Holmes to the attention of police. Holmes was an Army buddy of Muhammad’s, and the latter had fired rounds from his Bushmaster into a tree stump on Holmes’ property. Holmes likewise knew about Muhammad’s paternal relationship with Malvo. The investigators then pulled the slugs out of the stump to see if they matched the ones in the shootings. The press got wind of this and descended on Tacoma, leading to a media circus.

The Tacoma investigation was a sideshow, however. Once they had Muhammad’s name, the police could find his car. A BOLO alert was quickly sent across the nation containing the description and license plate number of the car. It was soon spotted by Whitney Donahue, who was driving a white box van at a rest stop on I-70 near Myersville, Maryland. Donahue and his companion worked out a plan to confirm that the Caprice had the correct license plate number. Once they had confirmed it, Donahue relayed the information to an emergency dispatcher, and police set up an elaborate capture plan involving a SWAT team, shutting down airspace over the area, and closing the roads. Muhammad and Malvo were then taken into custody, and the DC sniper show was over.

The DC snipers and Critical Race Theory

Muhammad never confessed to or explained why he had conducted the spree. Malvo discussed his actions in detail, but he had only been the junior partner in the killings and mostly described how he had made the shots. Otherwise, he had only been following Muhammad’s orders. Investigators considered it likely that the spree’s end goal was to kill Muhammad’s wife so that he could get his children back, with him believing that it would not be traced since it would seem like yet another random murder.

It is unlikely that this plan would have worked, however, since Robert Holmes had already tipped investigators off about his suspicions concerning Muhammad, and they would have made the connection if Muhammad’s wife had been killed. All documentaries regarding the spree attest to this theory, and it is plausible. Nevertheless, it fails to take into account Muhammad and Malvo’s intense racial hostility. Malvo in fact later admitted that he had been motivated by anti-white hatred.

Muhammad’s own racial animus was well-documented during his time in the Army, and yet no action was taken. I suspect I know the reason. In 1995 I attended a special briefing led by sub-Saharan military officers and NCOs concerning ethics. Its subject was the Confederate flag and all the harm it allegedly causes. Looking back on it, it is clear that this briefing, Muhammad’s antics, and indeed the American military’s ideology since integration in 1948 are all related.

While sub-Saharans were lecturing trainees in a Basic Training Company about the Confederate flag’s supposed evil, sub-Saharan crime was rampant. While Colin Powell was claiming to have been fighting racists in the service who tried to hamper his career, and likewise stated that the integrated military which had fought the Gulf War was second to none, guys like John Muhammad were posing a very real threat to their fellow soldiers, as likely indicated by the grenade attack. Kip Berentson’s suspicion that Muhammad had gotten away with it because he was a sub-Saharan is probably correct. The military has an unwritten but implicitly understood institutional culture that protects non-whites. This culture also renders whites helpless to nip any developing trouble from non-whites in the bud. If Muhammad had received a bad conduct discharge following the grenade incident, it would have legally prevented him from purchasing a firearm. It might not have stopped the spree, since the rifle he used was stolen, but it certainly would have made things more difficult.

Muhammad is not much different from Nidal Hasan, the Arab mass shooter who killed 19 people at Fort Hood in 2009 while he was a serving Major in the US Army. Hassan had many red flags on his record, yet nobody was able to stop him.

While Muhammad and Hasan are extreme examples of racial problems in the military, there are many cases of it where the results don’t lead to killings, but are nevertheless costly. For example, a highly-skilled white soldier may decide not to reenlist after experiencing a racial problem from a non-white troublemaker.

The size of the bloated Department of Defense and the complexity involved in countless negative racial interactions in the service make quantifying the problem difficult, but the pattern of sub-Saharans using Uncle Sam’s weapons to cause trouble is persistent. Americans have lost every war since integration, and the US military failed to protect ordinary Americans during the Black Lives Matter riots. Will things change? Possibly. Recruiting has dropped since General Mark Milley’s idiotic “white rage” remarks. This might get the establishment’s attention, but perhaps not. The Department of Defense is a player in its own right nowadays; it has been defying presidents since the Clinton administration.

Muhammad and Malvo had an ideology. It was not very well though-out, but its parallels with Critical Race Theory are clear. Malvo was a fan of The Matrix (1999). In that film a group of people led by a sub-Saharan are fighting against an evil system. Likewise, Critical Race Theory argues that sub-Saharans in America are being oppressed by a system riddled with structural racism. In such a worldview, everyone can be the enemy. Even Haitian carpenters on a DC street corner become legitimate targets. We should recognize that Critical Race Theory is the reigning narrative in America today, and as a result, no white American is really safe.

Practical matters

It is clear that the DC snipers could have been stopped earlier had the Alabama police run John Malvo’s fingerprint through the immigration database. This was an enormous lapse. Likewise, Malvo should have been a “kid in a cage” until he was deported. There will be another Malvo in the wave of immigrants arriving as a result of the Biden regime’s border crisis.

The pair could also have been stopped with a call to the Arizona State Police after Malvo practically confessed to another person that he’d committed a murder in Arizona. Such a story might have been a tall tale and idle boasting, but murderers don’t always keep secrets. Should one hear someone claiming to have committed a murder on a golf course Tucson, it might be a good idea to call a non-emergency police line and ask if there are any unsolved murders involving golf courses in Tucson.

Likewise, don’t lend your firearms to anyone you don’t really know or have suspicions about. All of Muhammad’s acquaintances had suspicions about him which later turned out to be correct. Similarly, a child should not be given a firearm of his own until he has graduated from high school. By that age, most people are less likely to do wildly impulsive or stupid things. Teach young people to shoot, yes, but don’t give them guns of their own.

And lastly, while the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department was clearly overwhelmed, it is nevertheless possible that a non-affirmative action Sheriff might have connected the dots more quickly, but there’s no way to be certain given the amount of data that was being collected. Planning for how to manage such an event should be considered by large police departments before such a crisis actually occurs.

While many white advocates might see themselves as fighters against an unjust system in a way similar to Muhammad and Malvo, even if they have different goals, it is not a good idea to go on a spree of violence believing that one is Neo in The Matrix. The best way for white advocates to win is to rise as high as possible in one’s career. When the good school principal, best soldier, effective mayor, and profitable businessman, among many other solid citizens, comes out endorsing the white ethnostate, we’ve won.

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