Notebook

Play suspended as Washington dodges sniper

My godson lives with his two children, Ben, 11, and Josh, six, right bang in the middle of the Washington suburbs where the sniper is at work. There isn't much help one can offer except refuge. So I offered our Toronto home.

Both parents are working and I didn't expect them to leap at the thought of upping sticks and leaving but there was a longer pause than I expected before my godson declined. "Thanks," he said. "We'll consider it." He didn't find the suggestion totally outlandish.

The sniper, who has killed eight and wounded two, is operating in that hub of Virginia and Maryland where the men and women who work in America's capital go home to sleep. These are mixed communities racially and economically - just like the victims. There are a lot of young families in starter homes, as well as better-off professionals. They go to films and shop, often in the big neighbourhood malls.

In October they relax in parks, where autumn is a glory of ochre, ginger-gold and russet leaves lingering because of a climate at the edge of the American South. But they are not doing much play outside now. Food and supplies have to be purchased, but quickly in a business-like manner.

By the standard of a Harold Shipman and his 300 or so victims this is, so far, a minor serial killer. But Shipman's victims were a specific target group. American serial killers, like British ones, usually have their eyes on a select group. They organise victims according to their own sexual tastes, race or other category. Lovers in parked cars are a particularly popular target.

A television sideline has sprung up of psychologists, psychiatrists and "profilers" keen to tell us about the sniper. The networks are awash with such people repeating the obvious with an air of discovery. "This man has a power complex and wants publicity," one told CNN. Apart from the terrible damage the sniper is causing, his activities summon up a special breed of television psychologists. They come out of the woodwork only to throw their profession into disrepute.

All we can assume is that the sniper is an abnormal human being. It doesn't matter what his agenda is. He may believe he is on a religious mission or he may be furious at being fired from the post office. Delusions and obsessions can take any number of forms. If he has a delusion it is likely to reflect popular culture.

In the 21st century, mental homes are not filled with people who think they are Julius Caesar or Queen Victoria but rather occupants who believe themselves to be Madonna or Saddam Hussein.

If the sniper keeps up this current killing binge, he (or they) will almost certainly be captured. There will be more deaths, one can't say how many, but if the spree continues, he will be caught.

The single serious obstacle to bringing him in would be if, like America's Unabomber, he has long periods of remission in his madness. Theodore John Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber (a name made up out of the initial locations and nature of his targets - universities and airlines) kept up his killings over a period of 17 years without detection.

He created explosive devices that he either posted to his victims or placed in vehicles. But his homicidal urges waxed and then had long years of waning. If the sniper exhausts his urge this time and goes back into whatever his "normality" may be for a year or two, and perhaps moves, his capture will be hard to achieve.

Ultimately, the FBI only captured the Unabomber because his brother recognised the handwriting of the letters Kaczynski wrote to the newspapers. All the detective work of the authorities over 17 years was of absolutely no use in finding him.

The sniper appears to have left a note for the police telling them he is God. Perhaps Christianity will forgive me if I wish that this delusion were so strong and real that we could send the sniper an invitation to come tomorrow at six to the tabernacle - address supplied - which we have built to worship him.

Crucifixion is out of date but I have confidence that an American jury will determine the appropriate substitute.