The Legend of Chief Moose

Back in 2002, the Washington DC area and its suburbs in Maryland were held in terror by the "Beltway Snipers," John Allen Muhammad, 41, and  Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17.

For reasons best known to themselves, they went on a shooting spree, cruising the DC Beltway in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice.  All told, they killed 17 people and wounded 10 more.

Muhammad was sentenced to death, and eventually executed in 2009, while Malvo, as a juvenile, was given six consecutive life sentences without parole.

In the meantime came the case of Miller v. Alabama (2012), in which the US Supreme Court decided that mandatory life-sentence punishments for juveniles are unconstitutional. That decision led to Malvo's sentence being overturned for re-sentencing. Most scholars feel that Malvo will still get a life sentence in Virginia, besides which, he also stands convicted in Maryland, sentenced to six life terms, and that ruling hasn't even been challenged yet.  Safe to say, between his Virginia sentences and those from Maryland, Malvo will be behind bars for quite some time.

But the recent stories on the news about Malvo brought back a central figure in the whole case, which, if you weren't around here at the time, was quite a terrifying ordeal. Since the snipers were shooting randomly at people, it got to a point where people filling their cars with gas would start the pump flowing, and then dart back into the safety of their vehicle, praying not to be shot. It was awful.

But the calming hand of the cop in charge, the chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department, Charles Moose, was credited with both coordinating the investigation and keeping the public from chaos. Chief Moose and his people worked with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and the police in the many other jurisdictions where Muhammad and Malvo shot people, but to this day, when you think back to those scary days, you think of the calm demeanor of Chief Moose (above).

Life took interesting turns for the chief after the case was wrapped up, however. In June of 2003, just months after the arrests of the two killers, Moose resigned from the Montgomery County PD after county officials told him his interests were conflicted by participating in the writing of a book about the case. That book, Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper, was published in October, 2003 and then became a TV movie. Charles S. "Roc" Dutton played Moose.

There were complaints from prosecutors about Moose's publicity tour, with tv appearances, promoting the book, but the prosecution had no trouble getting convictions.

Moose then left for Hawaii, entered the training academy of the Honolulu Police, and served there as an officer for six years before retiring to Florida.

It will be interesting to see if Malvo's legal team files for an appeal in Maryland, but that was the way it happened 17 years ago.  It seems a lot longer somehow.