I feel better already.

Thank God for the arrest of two men suspected in the sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., region.

I'm aware that the suspects - John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17 - are innocent until proven guilty. No one need remind me that police and prosecutors must make and prove a case before anyone can assign guilt.

But still I can't suppress the impulse to breathe easier, to assume the nightmare is over. No more nagging fears about my relatives living in the target zone of some faceless, but deadly accurate, serial killer.

For one thing, Mr. Muhammad has a face and a history. An ex-soldier and Gulf War veteran, he reportedly underwent two bitter divorces with serious custody issues. Although he appears to have no felony record, he's had at least one allegation of domestic violence.

Mr. Malvo, whom he called his stepson, is reportedly a high school junior and Jamaican citizen.

Both were arrested early Thursday as they slept, thanks in part to a Ludlow, Ky., trucker who spotted them at a rest stop in Frederick, Md. Police also recovered a rifle, scope and tripod.

Mixed emotions

So why do I still feel uneasy, or even a little ashamed?

Because the accused shooter - or shooters - are black. And I don't want them to be black.

How sick is that?

Although the national news media never discussed race during this ongoing case of random terror, underneath it all I had my suspicions and assumptions.

And I wasn't the only one. A bevy of experts posited that the perpetrator was a white male, probably a loner, with an explicable chip on his shoulder and a taste for inflicting panic and pain on strangers.

Most convicted serial killers are white. I assumed this one was, too.

I even joked crassly with a fellow coworker that most black murderers know their victims and have clear motives - anger, drugs, jealousy. A black shooter, I said, wouldn't randomly target an ethnic rainbow of victims like this one. Half the sniper's victims were black; others were Hispanic or white. At least one was Southeast Asian.

But I forgot a few famous cases.

Spree killers

In Atlanta, between 1979 and 1981, at least 30 black children and adults disappeared or were found murdered. Some residents suspected a hate crime, but a Georgia task force arrested Wayne Williams, an African-American. He was found guilty of two of the murders but after he received two life sentences, the task force disbanded, saying 24 of the 30 cases were closed.

In 1993, a black man ranted about white people while shooting passengers aboard the Long Island Railroad, killing six and wounding 19. Colin Ferguson defended himself at trial and received six life sentences. Questions remain about his sanity.

Depraved, sadistic, criminal thinking isn't exclusive to any one race. I realize that, but I don't want to accept it.

We blacks already are burdened with enough stereotypes and preconceptions about crime. I field many phone calls and letters accusing blacks of being criminals and tolerating them.

This case, I fear, will only add to that storehouse of racial assumptions.

I'm not proud of my own.

But I mustn't forget another important face and name in this case.

Police Chief Charles Moose of Montgomery County, Md., led the local and federal manhunt. He is a hero. He is black.

If I'm tempted to over-analyze the racial aspects of this case again, I'll think of him. And rest easier.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395