Task Force Nabs Suspect In Case of 24 MI Shootings that Terrorized City
November 9, 2012 09:17:58 am
The arrest of Raulie Wayne Casteel in the middle-class Detroit suburb of Wixom for 24 separate shooting attacks ended three weeks of terror for the city of 14,000, reports the New York Times. Authorities believe Casteel, 43, wounded a man shot in the buttocks as he was driving to a World Series game. “We started putting it together and counting the number of incidents, and the hair on everybody’s neck started to stand up,” Police Chief Clarence Goodlein said.
A investigative task force of 100 local, state, and federal officers worked the case. Goodlein said it came down to old-fashioned legwork. Investigators came in early and worked late, going through frame after frame of surveillance tapes from businesses along the gunman’s routes, sifting through more than 2,800 tips from callers and narrowing down lists of thousands of cars to find the one that mattered. A person familiar with the investigation said a tip about the shooter’s license plate — it had a Michigan State alumni frame and a green “S” on the left-hand side — helped lead investigators to Casteel, whose motive remains unknown.