Oct 21, 12:07 PM (ET)
By ALLEN G. BREED
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Authorities searching for the sniper terrorizing Virginia and Maryland took a man into custody Monday after surrounding a gray and white van parked next to an outdoor phone, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear whether the man was connected to the sniper case; authorities refused to comment.
The development came as the head of the sniper task force issued a second cryptic statement that authorities trying to communicate with the sharpshooter had received a message and were preparing a response. On Sunday, they had issued a public plea to the person who left a message at the scene of the latest shooting, in Ashland, a town north of Richmond.
Not far from the scene of that shooting, a swarm of police officers in bulletproof vests converged on the van along a main thoroughfare as the man sat inside, witnesses said. A police officer at the scene in the Richmond suburbs said the van was a Plymouth Voyager with temporary Virginia tags.
Keith Underwood, service manager at Royal Oldsmobile next to the Exxon station, said a team of police officers converged on the van and pulled the driver out around 8:30 a.m.
"He was taken out under control," he said. "I didn't see any resistance at all."
"They basically surrounded him with their shotguns," said another witness, Pathenia Fields, a title clerk at the car dealer. She said she saw just one man in the van.
In his brief statement issued in Maryland, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose didn't specify whether the message was a new communication or the same one they discovered near the scene of the latest shooting Saturday night.
"The message that needs to be delivered is that we are going to respond to a message that we have received," Moose said. "We are preparing our response at this time."
Moose left the podium immediately after the statement, and said beforehand he would not take any questions.
Police found the note in the woods near the Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, a few miles north of Richmond, after a man was shot and critically wounded Saturday night.
In a brief but dramatic news conference late Sunday, police had urged whoever left the note at the scene of Saturday's shooting to call them.
A law enforcement source close to the investigation told The Associated Press that investigators believe the person who left the message is probably the sniper, who has shot 11 people, nine fatally, in the Washington area since Oct. 2.