Sniper has D.C. feeling like the hunted
Posted on 10/13/2002 6:13:29 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Sniper has D.C. feeling like the hunted
10/13/2002
WASHINGTON - The mundane task of pumping gas has suddenly become an act of daring, an exercise in evasion.
No longer does one stand idly, nozzle in hand, while the tank fills. The 10 sniper shootings since Oct. 2 - four at gas stations - have changed all that. He, or they, could be lurking in the woods, preparing to fell yet another self-service customer. Eight people have been gunned down; two wounded.
Now the prudent patron bursts from the driver's seat, rams the nozzle into the tank, sets it on automatic fill and slips back into the vehicle. Or performs contortions outside - ducking, weaving, shuffling - that would have drawn curious stares a mere two weeks ago.
Such has everyday life been transformed for the 5 million people in the Washington area. Each white commercial van - the shooter or shooters' possible means of transportation - gets a second look, or a third. Schools are locked down, football and soccer games postponed.
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Holly Gross, a stay-at-home mother from Potomac, Md., said she stops only at full-service gas stations and no longer takes her 3-year-old son, Jake, with her when she runs errands.
"My son was invited to Chuck E. Cheese the other day, and I said, 'No way,' because it's in a strip mall," Ms. Gross said. "Everywhere you go, you are just so much more conscious of your surroundings. You run into the store or wherever you have to go. You don't want to be standing still because that's when this guy seems to be hitting people."
During the first few days, it seemed the paranoia would be confined to the sections of Montgomery County, Md., where the initial shootings had taken place. No more.
Now everyone feels vulnerable. People have been killed or wounded at gas stations and a strip shopping center in Virginia, on a street corner in Washington and outside a middle school in Prince George's County, Md.
One understands, on some level, how an antelope must feel at a watering hole on the Serengeti. It's the unsettling sensation of being watched, hunted.
"I haven't been to the grocery store in a week because of this," said Stacy Starr, a 33-year-old legal secretary and mother of two from Woodbridge, Va. The other night, her fiancé refused to let her gas up her car and did it himself.
"I think at this point, I'm beyond fear," Ms. Starr said. "I'm just irritated that this has disrupted my life."
Brian Stansbury, a 24-year-old lawyer who moved to Washington from Houston a year ago, finds himself scanning rooftops when he goes to the ATM. "I make sure I keep moving," he said.
That's part of the new D.C. area mantra: Keep moving. Don't linger on the busy corner. Use the drive-through.
Some say they are avoiding malls and restaurants. Pizza delivery outlets report a surge in business.
On Friday, already-skittish residents learned of another gas station shooting near Fredericksburg, Va. - this one as a state trooper worked a traffic accident nearby. The audacity of the crime, and the spectacle of police stops on northbound Interstate 95, only added to the tension.
"I have to put gas in my car," said 24-year-old Almaz Yousph, who works in an Alexandria, Va., coffee shop. "I'm thinking, 'Should I do it at night or during the day?' I don't know what to do. I'm very scared. Everybody's very scared."
Carly Glazier, a stay-at-home mother from Bethesda, Md., ruefully chronicled the self-protection techniques she and others are using.
After hearing about Friday's killing in Virginia, Ms. Glazier promptly drove to a gas station near her home, reasoning that the sniper could not cover 30-plus miles so quickly.
"The first thing I thought ... was that I should go buy gas because he's not right here," Ms. Glazier said. "Which is horrible to say. He's been averaging one [shooting] every other day or so. You kind of want to wait to find out where that one is to find out if you are safe for the day."
Nichole Sumrell, a junior at Lee High School in Fairfax County, Va., described an eerie lockdown that went into effect after Friday's shooting.
"They locked all the doors to the school and told every teacher to lock the classroom doors," Ms. Sumrell said. "They had teachers sitting at all the doors, and they had security people around the front of the school and everything."
Sports teams have been practicing in the Lee High gym, she said, and sporting events and other after-school activities have been canceled in recent days - a process repeated at schools throughout the region.
On Wednesday evening, Alisa Rogers and her husband, Philip, drove past the Battlefield Sunoco station near Manassas, Va., as was their habit. When they got home, they were aghast to learn that they had missed the fatal shooting of Sunoco customer Dean Meyers by 30 minutes.
"We feel it's very close to home," said Ms. Rogers, who runs a small research-and-development firm near Manassas Regional Airport with her husband. "All of us are pretty afraid to get gas, afraid to drive home."
On Friday, the Rogerses and their six employees were clustered around the office TV.
"We're all on edge," Ms. Rogers said.
And that means moving, as Shelley Davis, of Chevy Chase, Md., learned in a recent TV segment on reducing one's risk.
"When I walk across parking lots, I walk very fast and I zigzag," she said.
Her husband, attorney Thomas Hylden, confessed to hiding behind gas pumps while he fills up.
Mr. Hylden's younger brother, Rick, and his wife, Marie, were visiting from Plano and seemed somewhat less fearful.
"We're not worried about being shot while being tourists," Rick Hylden said.
As they visited downtown Washington, his wife noted, "there are tons of people on the street. The museum was full."
Ms. Davis, however, said she has made significant changes in her routine - and the routines of her three teenagers. Thirteen-year-old Katherine, for example, has been forbidden to walk to the school bus stop.
"I'm kind of paralyzed by this whole thing," Ms. Davis said. "It's kind of just taken over my life, hiding from this guy."
Michelle Mittelstadt, Richard Whittle, Steve Peoples, Jim Fry, Carolyn Presutti and John Sumrell of the Belo Capital Bureau contributed to this report.
Why aren't there more stories about the sniper shooting a week earlier than the first report of the sniper attacks where the victim was shot in the stomach? I saw the report on the news Friday night but nothing since. That victim was interviewed and he believes that he was actually the first victim of the sniper. The sniper shooting was in Siver Springs MD. Is it a coincidence that there is a large muslim community there?
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