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Drivers of white vans get suspicious looks

Date published: 10/16/2002

By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

KENSINGTON, Md. - Suddenly, everyone driving a white van around the nation’s capital, especially one with a ladder rack on the roof, is being treated like Public Enemy No. 1.

Police in the Washington metro area hunting for the suburban sniper have issued three composite drawings of vehicles for the public to watch out for. One is a slightly battered white box truck. A second is a white Chevy Astro van with a ladder rack. A third is a Ford Econoline van with a ladder rack.

The day police fingered a van with a ladder rack, “I had a lot of people give me funny looks,” said electrician Jim Mollenauer, who drives one. He even had a colleague ride with him to a Home Depot to experience the suspicious looks.

The sniper has killed nine people and wounded two others over the past two weeks in 11 sneak attacks with a high-powered rifle. His victims appear to have been chosen at random as they performed mundane chores such as pumping gas, going to school or shopping. Witnesses reported suspicious vehicles fleeing the scenes of the crimes, which led police to issue the drawings.

When the alert went out to be watchful for a white box truck, Tammy Byrne was driving along when just such a truck rolled by. She ducked down inside her white minivan.

Then when police added white vans to the lookout list - not quite like Byrne’s, but close enough - Byrne found herself on the other side of suspicion. As she dropped her two sons at her mother’s townhouse, two neighbors stared at her, muttering.

“I was annoyed because I thought `Why is she staring at me?”’ Byrne recalled. Her husband told her it was the van. “I’m very aware of people looking at me now in the white van.”

White-van drivers understand.

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Date published: 10/16/2002