The quiet is nice, and I want to refute the press and media claims that we are 'paralyzed' and 'gripped with fear.' We are on edge somewhat, we are modifying our lives to a small degree; but we are stronger than the media reports. Some have worried here about gallows humor. Gallows humor has helped us a lot. We joke about walking around wearing targets and bullseyes and we laugh nervously. We worry about our loved ones more than ourselves. Everywhere people are going on with their lives. Maybe it's the liberals in the media who are having such a hard time dealing with adversity.
Oct 16, 2002
'Need to be vigilant'
Sorrow, anxiety, fear in Falls Church BY FRANK GREEN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Candles and flowers were left near the spot in a Falls Church parking deck where FBI analyst Linda H. Franklin was fatally shot Monday night.
(BRUCE PARKER)FALLS CHURCH - Four white votive candles and plastic flowers marked the spot on the filthy pavement where Linda Franklin was felled by a bullet hours earlier.
Lidia Salinas, who lives near the Seven Corners Shopping Center, stood over the makeshift memorial and cried softly in the face of television cameras.
"She said that she feels sad. She says that she doesn't know the person but feels like a part of her family," said a young girl translating Salinas' Spanish for reporters.
Once again, traffic cones and police tape were geographic margins of a tragedy triggered by a sniper - this time in the ground level of a parking deck at the Seven Corners Shopping Center.
Virginians such as Salinas came to grips in their own ways yesterday with the anonymous killer's latest outrage.
Some stayed at home. But the vast majority went on with their lives. Many, however, were avoiding Seven Corners. Stores on the opposite side of the center from the crime scene opened at 10 a.m., but by 11 most of the vehicles in the lot belonged to store employees. Continue
