D.C. Sniper Attacks | |
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Location | Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Washington |
Date | February 16, 2002 – September 26, 2002 (preliminary shootings) October 2, 2002 – October 24, 2002 (sniper attacks) |
Target | Civilians in the Washington Metropolitan Area |
Attack type | Spree killing, mass murder |
Weapons | Bushmaster XM-15 rifle |
Deaths | 17 (10 in sniper attacks, 7 in preliminary shootings) |
Injured | 10 (3 in sniper attacks, 7 in preliminary shootings) |
Perpetrators | John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo |
The D.C. Sniper Attacks (also known as the Beltway sniper attacks) were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and preliminary shootings, that consisted of murders and robberies in several states, and lasted for six months starting in February 2002. Seven people were killed, and seven others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings.[1] In total, the snipers killed 17 people and wounded 10 others in a 10-month span.[2]
The snipers were John Allen Muhammad (age 41 at the time) and Lee Boyd Malvo (age 17 at the time), who traveled in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan.
In September 2003, Muhammad was sentenced to death, and in October, Malvo, a juvenile, was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole. In November 2009, Muhammad was executed by lethal injection.
In 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated Malvo's three life sentences without parole in Virginia on appeal, with re-sentencing ordered pursuant to the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012), which held that mandatory life sentences for juvenile criminals without possibility of parole violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, with oral arguments held on October 16, 2019.[3] Should he be resentenced, Malvo's minimum prison sentence will be determined by a judge; the available maximum sentence would be life imprisonment. The ruling does not apply to the six life sentences Malvo received in Maryland.[4] On February 25, 2020, after the passage of a Virginia law allowing those who are serving life sentences for offenses committed before the age of 18 to seek release after serving 20 years,[5] the U.S. Supreme Court case was dismissed at the request of lawyers on both sides.[6]