Police Have Hands Full with Mammoth Rock Creek Search
JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: With us today is CNN consultant Mike Brooks, who once was a detective with the D.C. police himself. Mike, I want you to give our viewers first a little bit of perspective about Rock Creek Park and what a huge area that we are talking, the investigators looking for. After all, if we look at the picture on the Web, you can see it is a park really that goes all the way through</s>D.C. MIKE BROOKS, CNN CONSULTANT: It's a very large park, Joie. People don't realize how big Rock Creek Park is. If you compare it with Central Park in New York, it's a lot bigger and a lot more spread out than Central Park is in New York. It's a favorite tourist site; you have the National Zoological Park, that's encompassed in Rock Creek Park; you have a number of historic homes, Pierces Mill (ph) and the Klingle Mansion, where they were concentrating some of the search today. It's a very large, you know, picnic area also, and that's probably why they are finding some of the bones. People will go there, bring their own food and picnic and enjoy themselves on the weekends, during the week, you can always find people there, you know, having a good time, eating lunch, these kinds of things.</s>CHEN: Just for our viewers, so you can help understand what is going on here. The area where Chandra Levy was living was right off Dupont Circle, which is a pretty popular area among young people, there is a fair amount of nightlife in that area. And then Rock Creek Park comes pretty close to Dupont Circle and then goes all the way up here, as you see, following along there the water, all the way up, up to the National Zoo, as Mike was just telling you, and then up to this Klingle Mansion, that's been the subject of the latest questions. Now, Mike, we have questions from the Web audience right now. This is from the morning on-line editorial meeting. Mark Meredeth asks: "How long will it take before the police consider downsizing the amount of time in the investigation?" Doesn't sound like, from yours sources, Mike, that they were ready to downsize at all.</s>BROOKS: No, I think right now, they will continue what they are doing; it may be a couple of weeks before they cover the whole area of Rock Creek Park, and again, an exhaustive search. But some of this area was gone over initially when Chandra was reported missing, due to the proximity of how close her apartment was to the park. So again, that was the area</s>CHEN: All right, Mike, another question from the Web chat under way. MariGrace Centofante. "Why didn't the police investigate as thoroughly the first week as they are now?"</s>BROOKS: I think that they were investigating it. When someone is reporting missing in the District of Columbia, they are classified as either critical or noncritical, missing person. On the critical side, you take into consideration the person's mental state. They consider someone who is missing as, let's say, as with Alzheimer's, as to be a critical missing person, or someone who may have been taken, where they believe to be foul play, and that's what this is. They particularly -- they put a command post up. They do a thorough search of the area and then they start their investigation. They start looking at all of the different leads. Right now, they're talking about doing a number of different things, especially in the Dupont Circle area, which is frequented 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a very busy area and that is where they are concentrating their search on some of the investigative leads they have right now. Some people said -- there was a lead yesterday that came about a van. Somebody was trying to lure young women into a van. Again, they're looking into that right now. It will be difficult to do that in the area of Dupont Circle, because of all of the people that are there. They are also looking right now, with dealing -- for the next -- 10 days, trying to get flyers out to cab drivers, to put Chandra's picture out there, to put some of the pictures...</s>CHEN: Trying to make sure that no stone is left unturned in all this. Mike Brooks is a CNN consultant helping with this story, as well, he was formerly with the FBI and the D.C. police, and we appreciate your insight on the story, Mike.</s>BROOKS: Thank you, Joie. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com