Fear grips suburbs as sniper hunt continues

Playgrounds and parks were empty, shoppers darted across car parks and shaken parents took children to and from school after a 13-year-old boy was wounded by the sniper roaming suburban Washington.

“Usually I’m embarrassed to walk around and hold my mum’s hand, but I don’t care today,” said Amanda Wiedmaier, 13.

Security firms across the region reported a surge in interest. About 50 Starbucks coffee shops removed their outside seats.

Mental health counsellors set up crisis phone lines for people distressed by the shootings that have killed six people and wounded two since last week.

“This is a person who is shooting elderly men, shooting women and now shooting little children,” Governor Parris Glendening said. “This is the act of an absolute coward.”

The latest victim, a 13-year-old boy, remained in a critical but stable condition last night with a wound in his chest.

With few solid clues or witness accounts, a task force of federal, state and local investigators is sifting through more than 7,500 phoned-in tips. Police said they have 1,400 credible leads but refused to give details.

The sniper has shot eight people altogether in the past week, including one woman wounded 50 miles away in Virginia.

One death occurred on a Washington street – the others came within five miles of each other in Maryland’s Montgomery County.

Police believe the sniper is picking victims at random and firing from a distance with a high powered hunting or military-style rifle. All the victims were cut down by a single bullet.

Ballistics tests found that the bullet that struck the boy on Monday was identical to those that killed some of the others and wounded a woman in Virginia. That woman was released from the hospital yesterday.

The FBI has set up command posts in Montgomery County and provided helicopter, field office, lab and computer support.

At a mall near the school where the boy was shot, staff at a Coldwell Banker estate agents office noticed shoppers were edgy.

“They don’t get out of their car without looking around, then they dash in the store,” Polly Rogers said.

“You don’t see people on their porch, or playing tennis. We are not used to this – we think Bowie is the safest place.”