Charles Alexander Moose was an American author and police officer. He was best known for his roles as being the primary official in charge of efforts to apprehend the D.C. snipers in October 2002 and the "Forest Park Killer", Todd Alan Reed, years prior. During his law enforcement career, Moose served as the chief of police for Montgomery County, Maryland, and Portland, Oregon.

The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and preliminary shootings, that consisted of murders and robberies in several states, and lasted for six months starting in February 2002. Seven people were killed, and seven others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings. In total, the snipers killed 17 people and wounded 10 others in a 10-month span.