Neighboring jurisdictions update:
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) _ Some Virginia school systems joined schools in the Washington, D.C., area in restricting activities and keeping children inside Monday after a 13-year-old boy was shot and wounded outside a middle school in Bowie, Md.
The shooting raised fresh fears in the area where a sniper killed six people last week, although no link had been made to the sniper attacks.
Fairfax County school principals were directed to keep all children inside during the school day, said Kitty Porterfield, director of community relations.
Prince William County schools canceled all outdoor activities for Monday and Tuesday, including after-school sports. Superintendent Edward L. Kelly said Prince William police increased their presence around school buildings, and some off-duty security personnel were called in.
In Arlington County, all outdoor activities during the school day were moved indoors.
School officials in Loudoun County, about 60 miles from the Bowie shooting, urged principals to be especially alert. School spokesman Wayde B. Byard said many principals were canceling outside recess, especially at schools where playgrounds are visible from roads.
The Loudoun County Sheriff's office also put extra patrols in place around county schools during start-up and dismissal times and planned similar patrols Tuesday.
A Loudoun County school field trip to the National Building Museum in Washington was abruptly cut short by the Bowie shooting. Sanders Corner Elementary School principal William M. Prokopchak said second-graders from the Ashburn school were just miles from the museum when school officials heard of the shooting. Within moments, Prokopchak got an assistant principal traveling with the children on her cell phone and ordered the buses turned around.
"We decided that it was just prudent," Prokopchak told The Washington Post. "This was in suburban D.C. and one suburb is just like another. I'm a parent myself, and we're taking the actions I would want my children's schools to take."
In Spotsylvania County, where a woman was shot Friday apparently by the same sniper, the superintendent canceled all outside activities and after-school events.
Schools in Fredericksburg were on lockdown, meaning no one could enter or leave a school until the end of the school day. Stafford and Caroline counties canceled all outdoor activities for the day.
King George County also put its schools on lockdown. Classes that usually meet in trailers were held inside the four main school buildings, said Bill Wishard, director of elementary education. All doors at every school were locked, except for the front doors, which were monitored.
Meanwhile, the 43-woman shot in the back outside a Spotsylvania County shopping mall on Friday was improving. Inova Fairfax Hospital upgraded her condition Monday from serious to fair.
There was something in Montgomery County Exec's Doug Duncan's comments last night that almost sounded like a dare to the killer(s) regarding the schools. As I listened to Duncan's press conference, I was filled with a sense of dread. I know Duncan didn't intend to issue a dare but it sounded like one nonetheless.
Listening to Duncan tonight I was thinking that he sounded good - meaning that he was saying what the residents needed to hear, he was angry, he was outraged... and he told parents that they needed to come to the schools and take the place of the kids as safety patrols. He said that parents should walk their kids to school, volunteer to act as security at the schools, crossing guards, etc.
But just because he said some of the things that needed to be said doesn't mean that I would vote for him. He's still an anti-gun liberal Dem.
My concern is that with the press conference tonight and all the cops and others telling us how safe the schools will be with cops, cop cadets, FD cadets, parents etc, watching over the kids... everyone will be watching the schools and the shooter will go back to a shopping center or elsewhere. He is not only shooting to kill people, he is playing a game - to let us know that he alone is in charge of when and where he decides to shoot at innocents. He is [bleep]ing with us... headgames are sometimes more potent a weapon than an actual physical attack.
It's time for him to die, IMO.