Blue Caprice Timeline

According to CNN Library (2015), in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo became a sniper team in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area by killing ten people and injuring three. Muhammad and Malvo achieved this by creating a sniper nest in the back of Muhammad’s car which was a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice Sedan. Looking at the crime from different sources, the media plays a big role in how the crime is portrayed.

Blue Caprice Film on Netflix

There is a movie currently on Netflix called Blue Caprice (2013). The movie is basically supposed to be a reenactment of the 2002 crime. In the film, there were a number of frames present. The first frame that was presented, at the very beginning of the movie, was the blocked opportunities frame. Lee Boyd Malvo’s mother was never home with him because she was a single parent and had to work in order to feed her. This frame was also present in another part of the movie when Malvo was at the grocery store with John Allen Muhammed. Malvo got caught stealing food from the grocery store. The reason he was stealing food was because he was hungry.

The only thing he was eating daily was honey and crackers. At that time, Malvo and Muhammed were moving place to place because they had nowhere to stay or money.
The next frames presented in the movie were the social breakdown frame and the faulty system frame. In the movie, the actor playing as Muhammed went on a rant about how he was fried from the U.S. Army, but he did not state the reason. Soon after being fired, he and his wife got a divorce which led to the next frame. The faulty system frame exists because while he was in the woods teaching Malvo how to shoot, he was talking about how he children were taken away from him because courts never give fathers custody.
The criminological theories that were present in this case were sociological and political. Muhammed influenced Malvo because he knew Malvo looked to him as a father figure. Malvo became a criminal because he was around Muhammed. Technically, Muhammed was already a criminal because he took his kids away without permission of the courts. Once Malvo learned how to shoot, he became just as much as a criminal as Muhammed was. Political theories come into play when Muhammed was in the grocery store where most of the shoppers were predominantly white. He was saying how they have Whites think they will have the higher social status forever and how they do not have worries. He was referring to how he was currently out of a job and struggling for money and that Whites rarely experience the same economic struggles.
Crimes of the Century; CNN episode on D.C. Snipers
The Crimes of the Century (2015) episode on CNN was actually a short documentary of how that crime happened. The episode did not start off with background information of the two men, Malvo and Muhammed. They were focusing on where the crimes were happening and what kind of gun was being used.
The part of the case that really shocked the public was how often the shooting were happening.

It was said that shootings with a rifle in the Montgomery County area were rare and by that time it had already been three shootings within two days. Since, every time a shooting happened, a witness saw a “white, box truck” nearby, police assumed that would be the vehicle that the snipers would be in. Once the news got hold of that information, different news anchors started to create possible profiles for the sniper. First, they thought it was only one person responsible for the shooting. They then went on to say that the sniper was a white, middle-aged male with a high degree of anxiety and military experience. One of the detectives in the case assumed that once these shootings started happening, that it was dealing with terrorists because 9/11 had just happened the previous

year.
The shootings being brought to the media caused ultimate fear to the community. Parents were afraid to send their kids to school. People were changing their routines. For example, after the shootings, some people started to duck while they pumped their gas at the gas station. Another example is that if a person were to go to the grocery store, they would not walk in a straight line. They would walk crisscross. During that time, when people saw a white van or truck, they assumed the sniper was the driver.
In this media source, psychological theories were present. Muhammed’s ex-wife said that when he returned home from the military, his spirit was “broken” and he was not the same person as before he left. As a result of him being unstable, he developed a criminal personality. He threatened to kill his ex-wife. He wanted revenge because he lost the custody battle of their three children. He believed that he was living in a racist society because the court did not grant him custody.
A woman in the documentary seemed like she was trying to find reasons why Malvo would kill those people. She went on to explain that Malvo was very “unhappy with his family situation and he was suicidal.” She also said that because he did not have a father figure, it was easy for him to be influenced by Muhammed because Muhammed gave him attention and watched over him.

People’s Magazine Article
This article in People’s magazine titled D.C. Killings 10 Years Later the Sniper’s Wife (2012) focused on the character of the sniper, John Allen Muhammed. Muhammed’s ex-wife was interviewed by People’s Magazine about how their marriage went. Mildred Muhammed, John’s ex-wife described him as “manipulative and emotionally abusive.” Some people still blame Mildred for the fear he caused the nation. She wanted to let the public know that she was just as afraid of him as they were.
The criminological theory expressed in his source, seemed to be psychological theories. Mildred mentioned that Muhammed was not the same when he came home from the army. This could possibly be due to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most individuals who return home from deployment battle with this condition. His behavior changed. He stalked his ex-wife. Malvo even reported that he was sexually abused by Muhammed.
This crime influenced the social construction of reality. This shooting spree occurred over the course of three weeks. It made it seem like shootings were very common in the DC area at the time, when, in actuality, they were not. It also gave the idea that crime rates were increasing, when they have actually been decreasing as time goes by. This traumatic event left people in fear because they thought they would be the next target.