All Rise is a 250-page large-format book featuring hundreds of full-color illustrations.

Preface

October 24, 2002

As I drove east on the Dulles Toll Road headed for the Capital Beltway, I was anxious and worried that I might not make it in time. Bruce Leshan, a reporter with WUSA TV 9, a local DC news station, had called and asked me to hurry to the Seven Locks Detention Center, some 20 miles away in Montgomery County, Maryland. He wanted me to catch the first glimpse of the two people suspected of being the D.C. snipers who had terrorized residents throughout the Washington, metropolitan area for three weeks. The snipers had shot twelve people at random, killing ten. The reporter said with some uncertainty, "We think that's where they're taking them."

As I drove, I tuned my car radio to WTOP, a news station that was providing the latest details on the arrests of the suspects. The newscaster, too, was speculating about where the suspects would be taken first. My cell phone rang; it was Bruce Barr, an assignment editor at CBS News who asked me to head to the federal court in Baltimore, Maryland—some 40 miles north of my original destination. "We hear that's where they're taking them," he said. I was perplexed. I respected both sources, but they couldn't both be right. I gambled that the editor at CBS was right and took the exit leading toward Baltimore.

It would take me almost an hour to reach Baltimore. I continued to listen to the news all the way there, but I was still not sure I had made the right decision. The U.S. District Court in Baltimore is just off Interstate 95 near the scenic waterfront. Was I in the right place, though? As I headed along West Pratt Street, I approached the cold, gray federal building, noticing that it looked pretty quiet. If I'm wrong, I thought, it's too late to make it back to the other location. I turned left onto Hanover Street, which runs in front of the courthouse, and saw the perimeter of the courthouse grounds surrounded by heavily armed men in dark uniforms as well as numerous police vehicles. Crowds of people had gathered along the streets on the opposite side. Overhead a black helicopter hovered. I was in the right place! My day was just beginning.