Boy, 13, shot at school gates

A 13-YEAR-OLD boy was shot and critically wounded as his aunt dropped him off at school yesterday, bringing fresh terror to the Washington area where a sniper killed six people last week.

Anxious parents streamed in to retrieve their children from the school and police in neighbouring Montgomery County hunting for the serial sniper rushed to the scene.

Officials stressed that no link to the Montgomery shootings had been established.

"Whether they're connected or not, the fear has ratcheted up quite a bit," Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan said.

Sharon Healy had just sent her 12-year-old son, Brandon, to school on his bicycle when she heard of the shooting shortly after 8am outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School. She said she ran there and pulled him out of class: "You think you're safe, but you're only as safe as your next step."

Said her son: "I was scared."

The victim sustained a single gunshot wound to the chest. He was undergoing surgery and was listed in critical but stable condition, Jacqueline D. Bowens, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. The victims in last week's shootings also were felled by a single shot.

The shooting happened well before classes were scheduled to begin, so there were not a lot of witnesses, Prince George's County Police Chief Gerald Wilson said. A gunshot was heard, and the boy slumped over and told his aunt he thought he had been shot, Wilson said.

His aunt took him to a small hospital in this suburb northeast of Washington, and then he was transferred by helicopter to Children's Hospital.