- (AFP) -- The US Defense Department has been asked to
review its records of rejected applicants and former enlistees with marksmanship
skills, as police attempt find the shooter in a series of deadly sniper
attacks here.
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- The Pentagon has been asked to comb through its records
as police try to locate the sniper who has killed eight and wounded two
in an 11-day shooting spree, according to local television networks here.
-
- Newsweek magazine reported in the edition on news stands
Monday that the Defense Department also has been asked to search records
from the sniper school at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for applicants and
former students with psychological problems.
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- The shooter has felled all of his victims with a single
bullet, leading investigators to speculate that he might have had military
training as a marksman.
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- The suspect has also shown great skill in eluding authorities,
shooting his victims from too remote a distance to be seen, and quickly
escaping without a trace on area freeways.
-
- The shootings appeared no closer to being solved Monday,
as investigators continue to counsel the public that they are just one
good tip away from cracking the case.
-
- "People are continuing to give us information; we're
following up those leads," said Charles Moose, police chief in Montgomery
County Maryland, where five of the shootings occurred.
-
- "We want people to keep the faith and remember this
is certainly not the first person or group of people who tried to change
us or change the nation. So please continue to be resilient," Moose
told reporters on Sunday.
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- The last shooting occurred early Friday at a Virginia
gas station.
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- Ballistics tests showed that each of the 10 victims were
felled by a single shot from the same weapon -- a 5.56-millimeter (.223-caliber)
assault-type rifle.
-
- In Alexandria, Virginia, a community group known as the
Guardian Angels pumped gas for people afraid to get out of their cars.
Four of the victims were shot at gas stations.
-
- "People are absolutely afraid. The general consensus
is they don't want to go to the suburbs to pump gas, they want to go to
metro DC were they feel safer because there's more traffic and less of
a chance the sniper will strike there," said Arnold Salinas, a founder
of the Guardian Angels, outside a filling station.
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- Over the weekend, Washingtonians avoided places they
see as potentially risky, such as health clubs with glass windows, gas
stations and playgrounds.
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- "I draw a lot from local people, and they just weren't
coming" said Mary Kay Rick, head of Tour DC, a walking tour group.
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- "It's even worse than it was after the September
11 attacks. It's so random and so scary I think people are just hunkering
down."
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- Local schools from Maryland to Virginia banned students
from playing outside and cancelled field trips.
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- Fear of further shootings prompted organizers to cancel
numerous outdoor events, including annual outdoor runs in Rockville, Maryland
-- the site of one of the fatal shootings.
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- "If something happened, you couldn't defend it,"
said Rockville spokesman Neil Greenberger.
-
- He added that fear has gripped officials and residents
alike in this region around the US capital of more than five million inhabitants.
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- The reward for information leading to the arrest of the
serial sniper has topped 500,000 dollars, which has resulted in thousands
of leads being phoned in to a police hotline about the case.
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- Authorities released a drawing of a white, box-like truck
with damage to a rear bumper seen near some of the shootings.
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- A second composite of a white Chevy minivan also seen
by witnesses speeding away from shooting sites would be released Monday,
Moose said.
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- More than 1,000 local, state and federal officials were
working on the case.
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