Posted on 10/16/2002 9:51:18 AM PDT by Desdemona
Edited on 05/11/2004 5:33:58 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A motorist was shot and killed on Interstate 55 in St. Louis on Wednesday morning by a gunman who drove alongside the victim's car and fired multiple shots in what did not appear to be a random act, police said.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Perhaps Democratic voter registration?
To me it is curious what makes the media at all. Look at all this days shootings of which not is made much.
For all the comparisons to past serial killers like Kuzinsky, it is worth noting how much the media as a whole chooses to overlook the Zebra killings.
That one is obvious.
Jeannie White was so sure her son was about to be murdered that she bought a life insurance policy to have enough money to bury him. On Wednesday morning, she needed it.
Antonine Brown was shot to death as he drove along Interstate 55, in a reckless rush-hour hit that grazed three other motorists, imperiled everyone on the road and generated momentary fears of a copycat of the Washington sniper.
St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa said the shooting was apparent retaliation for another murder.
That also was the talk on the street in Brown's neighborhood, where family and neighbors said he had been living on borrowed time, hiding from what they regarded as an inevitable death.
Brown, 25, was hit with fire from a high-powered rifle about 8:30 a.m. as he drove south on I-55, just north of the Gasconade Street exit. Police said several rounds were fired from a car that had pulled alongside the victim's red Chevrolet Lumina.
Three northbound motorists in separate vehicles suffered slight injuries from bullet fragments or pieces of window glass they struck.
Early reports of the shooting elicited fears across the region that the shooting was the work of a sniper — perhaps copying the recent murders in suburban Washington.
Mokwa said officers were seeking several people who had been stalking Brown since Sept. 24, when Nelson Rainey, 39, of Jennings, was killed while sitting in a car in the city's Walnut Park neighborhood. That is two blocks from Brown's home in the 5000 block of Arlington Avenue.
Police considered Brown among possible suspects in that killing but had made no arrests. Rainey had died from shots fired from both sides of the street; his passenger was unharmed.
Brown's family members and police said he had been shot at several times after Rainey's death. Jeannie White said he came home one afternoon with a head wound where a bullet had grazed him; more recently, an acquaintance had held a gun to his head.
Neighbors on the block said it was common knowledge that Brown was marked for death.
"There were rumors," said his sister, Robbie White, "that he did something and people were going to get him."
He had been hiding out the past few weeks at motels in north St. Louis County and with his sister in south St. Louis County.
He was headed toward his sister's home Wednesday after dropping off his mother at a neighborhood store. She said she told him, "I love you. Be careful."
White said she knew weeks ago that "the devil was in him" and that his death was imminent. Recently, she said, she bought the life insurance.
She said she does not believe that her son killed Rainey.
"They had a contract out on him," she said. "He kept telling me, 'Mama, move to (another neighborhood). I'll pay the rent.' "
Mokwa said police believe Brown was spotted by his killers on a street in the Walnut Park neighborhood about 20 minutes before he was shot. The shooting scene is about 10 miles south of Walnut Park via Interstates 70 and 55.
Police said they believe the attackers didn't catch up to Brown until moments before he was killed. Mokwa said police assumed at least two people were in the chase vehicle, described as a 1988 maroon or red Pontiac Bonneville.
"This appears to have been a planned, strategic attack on one individual," Mokwa said. "These are people who believe they can take their violence anywhere, and we are going to put a stop to it.
"We are very, very fortunate that someone wasn't more seriously injured by this," he said.
In the northbound lanes, a truck driver suffered a grazing wound to his chin, a woman suffered cuts to her face from glass when a bullet or fragment pierced her driver's side window, and another truck driver may have been grazed on his forehead, police said. None of the victims was taken to a hospital.
After the shooting, police closed the southbound lanes until 10:15 a.m. and restricted northbound traffic to two lanes during their investigation.
Brown was on probation for auto tampering and possession of narcotics, both felonies, and was well-known to police, Mokwa said.
Jeannie White described Brown as a good son who was the father of at least four children.
Mokwa said police officers have seized 380 guns during the past two months in high-crime neighborhoods and had succeeded in reducing the number of murders. But he said, "For some people, shootings and retaliations are just life on the streets."
"at least four"? Maybe more? And how many mothers of those children are there?
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