December 1982

By Vincent Del Giudice

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Police marksmen had their rifles trained on Norman D. Mayer almost from the outset of his siege at the Washington Monument and fired only to keep his van from becoming a ‘mobile time bomb,’ police said today.

Mayer, an aging anti-nuclear activist who for 10 hours Wednesday threatened to detonate the half-ton of TNT he claimed his banner-decked van held, was killed trying to drive off the monument grounds. His van had no explosives in it.

Park Police Chief Lynn Herring told reporters today investigators had verified Mayer had been trying to buy dynamite in several places. But they felt he would not be able to reach a transmitter while trying to drive and concluded there would be no danger if shots were fired at the truck.

In addition, Herring said, officers wanted to keep any explosion at the monument grounds and not let Mayer get his van out toward other buildings.

Park Police spokesman George Berklacy said the snipers’ instructions were to disable the van at all costs, even if they set off an explosion. The only people in direct danger in that case, he said would be police officers, ‘And I guess that would be in the course of duty.’

Herring said that although he felt from the outset Mayer had no accomplice, some of the snipers thought they had seen movement within the van during the day.

Mayer, 66, who wanted a ‘national dialogue’ to prevent nuclear annihilation, died of a single gunshot wound to the head, an autopsy showed. It was not self-inflicted, said the autopsy report, which added he had another wound in the face and one in an arm.

The siege ended about 7:30 p.m. EST, about 10 hours after it began, in a hail of gunfire. The truck backed and turned, then started forward. The first of the shots rang out. It continued down the hill, flipped on its left side and slid to a halt.

James Lindsay, Park Police operations commander, said today the decision to force Mayer to keep the truck at the monument was made early because police were convinced his threat was real.

Although Mayer, whose van bore a banner reading, ‘No. 1 Priority, BAN Nuclear Weapons,’ drove down a monument approach leading in the general direction of the White House, Lindsay said police will never know if Mayer intended to head toward the executive mansion about 3,000 feet away.

The federal agents to reach the wounded Mayer in the van’s cab handcuffed his hands to the steering wheel to keep him from reaching any detonator. He was pronounced dead a short time later.

Sniffing police dogs entered the van and gave a positive indication of explosives but none was found.

The sharp reports from police weapons ended the most bizzarre protest at the monument to the nation’s first president, long the site of scores of demonstrations — ones ranging from denunciation of the Vietnam War to civil rights protests.