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Chief Charles Moose: sniper case creates new national hero
Ebony, April, 2003 by Kevin Chappell
ENOUGH." That was the answer a poker-faced Charles Moose gave last October during a press conference to a reporter who--in the midst of the manhunt for the D.C.-area sniper--had questioned how much sleep he was getting.
Delivered with such a determination and conviction as to leave little doubt as to its honesty, the Montgomery County, Md., police chief's one-word response, it turns out, was as wrong as it was right. True, during the random shootings that terrorized the nation's capital, the 49-year-old Moose was sleeping about four hours a night. But deep down inside, he knew that the kind of sleep that he was getting wasn't sleep at all.
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It was more like passing out. While adrenaline kept him going during the day, truth was, Moose was so mentally fatigued that when he did fall asleep, he would lie motionless in a state of virtual unconsciousness, a lethargic stupor in which his dreams were as empty as the thousands of leads he had worked.
"I'm cognizant of my dreams," he says during a one-on-one interview in his Rockville, Md., office. "I have some recall of when I'm dreaming. For the little sleep I did get during that time, I actually stopped dreaming. So it was kind of like passing out. I would just kind of pass out for about three or tour hours, and then wake up. I was getting that rest, that deep sleep. But with the energy and adrenaline and all of the activity, it wasn't like I was tired either."
Perhaps the most important word he had spoken during all of his 28-year law enforcement career, "enough" was strong enough to quell his critics and put an end to their elementary mind games perhaps aimed at convincing the public that the low-keyed Black man from Lexington, N.C., was tired and in over his head. Like it or not, Moose was, and would continue to be, the public face of one of the highest-profile cases that had ever gripped the nation. Soon President Bush, who was being briefed every morning about the status of the case, lent his support to Moose.
Millions of people watched as Moose successfully defied nature, dispelled stereotypes and directed local and state law enforcement officers--and nearly 1,000 federal investigators--in the arrest of those suspected of killing 10 people and wounding three others. What had begun with five people being fatally shot in fewer than 24 hours, and grew every 36 hours or so, when another person in another part of the region was gunned down, culminated some three weeks later in the arrest of John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo.
Now, months later, as he sits in his office overlooking the parking lot that during the height of the investigation was overrun by dozens of reporters, satellite trucks, tents and makeshift studios, Moose is able to reflect on the events that changed him forever, and made him a celebrity whose life story is now being sought after by publishers and film studios. "It seemed a lot longer than [it was]," says Moose, relaxing in a wooden chair across from his desk, seemingly still amazed at the events that unfolded in his relatively quiet Maryland county. "And fight now it seems like it was yesterday. The memories are that vivid. It seemed like every day it got larger ... It was unlike anything I have ever seen."
Having begun his police career in 1975 as a young police officer in Portland, Ore., Moose thought he had seen just about everything. During his first years in Portland, he worked undercover, playing an integral part in the arrests of 40 people running a massive stolen property ring. In fact, the sting operation was such big news that Moose and other officers on the police force were interviewed by the television show 60 Minutes. "I hadn't been on the job but two years and I was already being interviewed on 60 Minutes," he says. "I thought it was going to be like that all of the time."
But during the next 18 years, as he worked his way up to chief of the Portland Police Department, he came to realize that day-to-day police work was anything but glamorous and high profile. "The ebb and flow in the police business is really strange," he says. "I feel like I got my fair share of media in Portland during my six years as chief."
After leaving Oregon for Maryland to take the job leading the Montgomery County police force in 1999, he soon adjusted to the low-profile role of a suburban police chief. He says after a while, he began to enjoy his relative anonymity in Montgomery County, and the family time it afforded him. Moose has been married 18 years to wife Sandy Moose, and has a son from a previous marriage, 22-year-old David Moose, who attends Howard University. (Moose's family includes his wife's son from a previous marriage, Lincoln Herman, 28, who lives in Portland.) "There's D.C., so you don't really get a lot of attention, even though you're kind of right here in the thick of a major metropolitan area," he says. "You begin to think, `This is pretty nice, I can live without it. I'm kind of glad nobody knows me.' Then this happens."
