Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: white box truck, sniper siege, sniper task force, Montgomery County, North Carolina, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

During the first three weeks of October 2002, 14 random people were gunned down in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C., setting off the largest manhunt in American history. Through it all, Montgomery County Police Chief Moose was the face America watched. He was comfortingly there, on television, before people went to work in the morning and when they got home at night. But as soon as the snipers were no longer generating news, Chief Moose began making news himself. And when he decided to write a book about those three notorious weeks, a full-scale controversy erupted over the propriety of "exploiting" these events for financial gain. Eventually, he decided to resign from the police department. Written in short, awkward sentences, his book lacks polish, but its raw honesty and idiosyncratic charm more than compensate for the hurried prose. Despite the title, Moose adds very little to the story of the shootings he lets you know what he did and how he felt about it, but there are no sizzling revelations. Most of the book tells his own remarkable story in a gutsy, endearing, no-nonsense way, from growing up in an all-black neighborhood in North Carolina in the 19TKs to his unlikely entry into law enforcement and his even more unlikely rise to the top of the profession. Moose writes unapologetically about his mistakes and personal hardships, his views on leadership and his struggles with racial prejudice, and about his loving wife and how he keeps his uniform looking so sharp. Moose also takes up his own defense, cutting through all the hubbub to show that behind the provocative headlines was little more than a simple, heartfelt man just trying to do the best job he could.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

A very candid story...well worth reading. -- Washington Post

Gutsy...endearing...no-nonsense. -- Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451212797
• ISBN-13: 978-0451212795
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,739 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Needs professional touches, October 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Weeks in October (Hardcover)

I live in the Washington, DC area and remember all the details of the sniper case. I was pregnant at the time and terrified. I found this book to be choppy and repetitive. He says the same things over and over again - in the next sentence, paragaph, page, chapter, over and over again. He often writes in phrases instead of full sentences. It's the way he might speak, but it doesn't read well. There are a few grammatical errors and a mention of a "Washington Wizards hockey game" - it's a basketball team!

There were no major secrets revealed about the investigation. Everything had made it out into the press. He doesn't even seem to reveal his thoughts as surprises unfolded, saying that it wasn't his place at times. To his credit, he does seem honest about his feelings for the most part. I just felt that he left out his unique perspective on the most interesting aspects of the investigation.

The chapters alternate between his life and the investigation. It's effective. The race issue seems to come up in every part of his life, and I'm sure it is always a factor (I too am a minority) but for all of his accomplishments (which he's not shy about telling!) I would have liked for him to put the racial aspect in a more positive light, than with the bitterness alternating with ambivalence that I found through most of the book.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Loose Moose, September 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Weeks in October (Hardcover)

I remember those weeks in October very clearly: the news reports, the anxiety, the anticipation, the hopefulness that the perpetrators would be caught or taken down. The fact that Maryland has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation was ironic, as well.

In this reader's opinion, Charles Moose did nothing but hurt the investigation. He initially ignored early eyewitness testimony and gave a 'look out' only for white males in a white delivery box van of varying descriptions. Thanks to this initial denial of evidence, Malvo and Muhammed slipped through checkpoints at least once, despite the suspicious cutouts in the trunk of their blue sedan.

The cracking of case, despite Moose's claims, did not come at his hands, but at the hands of a courageous citizen (a truck driver) who had listened to the late-breaking media leak that the suspects were black males driving a blue, older-model sedan. A whopping two hours later, the shooters were caught.

An Army vet, Steve Cribbin, was a witness to the first Beltway sniper shooting: "I told a cop I was in my car waiting to go to work [outside Papa John's Pizza in Aspen Hill, Md], just resting, and I heard a gunshot, and being I was in the military, I knew it was a rifle. It didn't sound like a backfire," said Cribbin during an interview. "And I looked around and said, 'Man, where in the hell did that come from?' The next thing I know I see a car driving out, and it was, like, a dark blue Thunderbird or an old cop car, with a couple of black guys giving high-fives and driving away."

The detective that took his statement was Montgomery County Detective Chris Homrock. Finally, days later (and several killings later), the multi-agency sniper task force, headed by Moose, sent out a homicide detective to field-interrogate Cribbin about his prior statements. The detective, according to Cribbin, was suspicious of his testimony and tried to talk him out of his statements, asking, "How do you know it's black people?" Cribbin, while uncertain of the car make, was certain of the driver & passenger as it was still light out when he saw them.

As later reported, Moose refused to give out physical descriptions of the suspects until very late in the investigation because he said he didn't want to "paint some group." One Montgomery County PD detective said Moose was worried about patrol officers "stopping every black in Montgomery County. Of course, it was OK to stop every white in a white box truck."

Moose has a race-obsessed past, taking advantage of innocent situations and screeching "racism" or "discrimination" at the slightest question or inconvenience, then attempting to settle the proceeding suit for large sums of money. One known "successful" case was with the Marriott Corporation (for $200k). He fought furiously against the Montgomery County PD to get them to allow him to write and sell this book, despite longstanding ethics regulations preventing him from profiting from his job as police chief. In fact, because of the timing of the release (the start of the trial), the prosecution's case could have been jeopardized. Despite the Montgomery County ethics board's unanimous ruling against its release, Moose ignored them and released it anyway, and (he and his wife) then hurled reckless charges of racism at county employees.

He says in his book that "We must all be social engineers" and admits to having "complicated" feelings about Muhammad and Malvo because they are black. His greed and racial-blinders may have cost some people their lives. Thankfully this book did not jeopardize the trial.

Do not give this man any more money. ...

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The life of a flim-flam man, September 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Weeks in October (Hardcover)

Like most people in the Washington DC area, those three weeks in October were an amazing and difficult time for me. When I saw Chief Moose on television during the investigation I had the same initial reaction pretty much everyone else did. While he lacked the smooth slickness of a man accustomed to being in the limelight, he came across as a strong leader and a truly dedicated public servant. Boy, did this guy have me fooled, and would I eventually feel like a sucker for it.

It's pretty clear now that inside this brave and dedicated exterior lies a man full of anger and personal demons. Right up to the very final minutes of the investigation, he either knowingly and deliberately misled the public as to the true nature of the assailants, or he was so blinded by his own personal prejudices that he simply could not face up to the evidence that was plainly in front of his face. In either case, such a man isn't fit to run Mayberry's police department, much less one of a large suburban county. Some cursory research into his past will show a long history of problems, caused in no small part by a giant racial chip on his shoulder. And in the end, his inability to abide by the rules set by his bosses led this dedicated public servant to dump his entire career in order to make a quick buck, which led to the book you're reading about here.

Don't let this con-artist dupe you yet another time. If you absolutely must read it then check it out of the library, but don't reward this guy financially after what he did.