In the Line of Fire

ZACCHEUS IN THE SYCAMORE TREE

Those familiar with the Christian Bible know the story of a diminutive man named Zaccheus, who decided to put himself in a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus better. At least in the King James version, it doesn't end with 12 disciples screaming: "Jesus! He's got a weapon."

Before ten seconds of gunfire, our modern Zaccheus had to know about the event, know the location, make some plans and preparations, which, in typical planning involves some reconnoiter or probing operations, even if, living within an hour from the venue, he should have some level of familiarity.

About three decades ago, I had been the ops officer for all army strategic counterintelligence in CONUS, and got to stand up ops cells for Oklahoma City and the Atlanta Olympics. One basic task you are going to do, to help understand pieces is to develop a profile of the suspect, if the identity is known. This may provide some clues as to how he arrives at the right place at the right time and with the right equipment.

CBS News says the exact location of this rally was not known until July 10th, giving the suspect only three days to develop an operation plan in which he would have to transport a three-foot weapon with a 16-inch barrel from his parked vehicle to his planned position.

Now, CNN is claiming that the suspect had just been planning to do a shooting and it just happened that rather than Mohammed having to go to the mountain, the mountain came to him. The stars just happened to perfectly align? And an open roof just happened to be waiting for him, open for the three hours after he was detected at the magnetometer and then just disappeared?

Why is a kid who failed to get on the rifle team in high school running around with his father's AR-15? A Christian Democrat who owns an AR-15? Why didn't Dad, a licensed social worker and published psychologist, teach his kid to shoot in high school, where his classmates called him the "school shooter"? And if he wasn't teaching his son how to shoot in high school, why, on the day the kid skips work, does he let him borrow his AR-15 to go for target practice? Why, with less than 24 hours passed, did his Dad social worker report a missing person at 11:00 pm, a kid who was supposed to return from target shooting around 1:00 pm?

Just interesting questions.