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Police probe another fatal shooting in Va.

Discussie gestart

Ronald Verhoog

MASSAPONAX, Va. A man was cut down by gunfire at a gas station Friday in what could be the eighth killing by a sniper who has terrorized the Washington area for more than a week, hunting down people as they did everyday chores.

Witnesses to the 9:30 a.m. shooting at an Exxon station saw a white Chevrolet Astro van with a ladder rack on top drive away from the scene with two people inside. That set off a massive, rain-soaked manhunt that virtually shut down Interstate 95 and parallel U.S. 1, major commuting arteries into Washington.

Traffic was at a standstill for hours as police, some with guns drawn, stopped and searched white vans. Roadblocks were lifted at midday when it appeared the shooter had slipped past authorities.

A white van and a white box truck had been sought after previous shootings, and police were continuing to search for both types of vehicles. Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County (Va.) Sheriff's Department warned that "anybody who owns a white van will probably be stopped and questioned."

Smith identified the victim only as a 53-year-old man from Philadelphia.
 
Analysts for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were studying ballistics evidence from the shooting scene to determine if the slaying is connected to a shooting spree that began Oct. 2. It was not certain on Friday when the testing would be completed.

"We're not going to try and rush it," said ATF Agent Mike Bouchard.

The Washington Post reported late Friday night that ballistic evidence conclusively links the shooting of Bridges to the elusive sniper, according to unnamed law enforcement sources.

The shooting spree has left five people dead in Maryland, one in Virginia and one in Washington. Two people were wounded: a 13-year-old boy shot in front of his Bowie, Md., school and a woman shot at a Virginia shopping center just five miles away from Friday's killing.

If connected, the Friday shooting may have given authorities a break.

Smith said some of the witnesses who spotted the white van were able to describe the two men inside. That would be the first physical description of possible suspects.

Smith said it is too early in the investigation to make those descriptions public, adding, "We are not certain if that van had anything to do with this."

The shooting Friday took place on U.S. 1 near the Massaponax exit of I-95, about 60 miles south of Washington and just outside Fredericksburg, Va.

Bruce Bingham, the head mechanic at a Mobile station across the street from the shooting scene, was taking a break and smoking with fellow workers when "we heard the shot and turned toward the area of the intersection and noticed a white van starting to drive away."

Bingham did not catch a look inside and said remorsefully, "I wish I did have enough information to help them catch somebody."

Danielle Carmichael lives in a motel near the gas station and was standing outside about a half-hour before the shooting.

"I saw two white vans and I went right back inside," she said. "People are pretty scared."

Smith said a state trooper was across the street from the Exxon station attending to a traffic accident when he heard a shot and ran about 50 yards to help the victim, but did not see the van.

Smith said the fact that the shooting took place with a trooper nearby shows that the killer is "extremely violent and doesn't care."

The murder has terrorized area residents — some are crouching behind cars and pumps while they fill their cars with gas, and schools and many parents are keeping children indoors — and has stumped police.

The killer appears to be a cool and methodical single-shot sniper who picks his victims at random and from a distance, then flees — a far different profile from most serial and mass murderers.

Aside from a taste for ordinary suburbanites over a widespread area, the killer or killers' patterns are few. The targets were men and women of different races and ranged in age from 13 to 72. All but one of the shootings happened outside Washington, and the one killing inside the city took place near the Maryland state line.

Including the Friday attack, four shootings have occurred at gas stations and the last four were in locations with quick access to major highways.

Hundreds of law enforcement officials from state and local police forces, the FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms converged on the Exxon station after Friday's shooting and broke up into teams. They questioned witnesses, shut down U.S. 1 and searched the area, walking shoulder to shoulder and taking small steps. Some carried metal detectors.

Authorities appeared helpless to provide advice or much comfort to an increasingly skittish public.

Asked if people should avoid gas stations, Smith said, "A lot of people are afraid to do anything right now. He's not targeting just gas stations."

President Bush has ordered federal officials to aid in the investigation, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Fleischer was asked about the audacious nature of the attacks and the fact that the shooting Friday was near a police barracks.

"I think many people are wondering how it could happen at a school, and I think many people are wondering how it could happen at a gas station, how it could happen at any open space, how it could happen at any closed space, how it could happen at all," he said. "And that's why this is such a difficult, difficult thing."
#1 - 12-10-2002, 11:17 uur

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