- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
man was shot and wounded in a parking lot outside a restaurant in a Virginia
town located 90 miles south of the U.S. capital on Saturday night, but
authorities said they did not know whether the incident was linked to the
sniper murder spree in the Washington area.
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- Authorities said a man was shot with single bullet outside
a Ponderosa Steakhouse restaurant in Ashland, Virginia, and was transported
to a local trauma center for treatment. Officials said he was undergoing
surgery at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
-
- Ashland is located about 16 miles north of Richmond,
Virginia.
-
- Since Oct. 2, an elusive sniper has killed nine people
in Washington and neighboring Maryland and Virginia and wounded two others,
picking off victims at random with a single bullet from a high-powered
rifle. Police could not confirm if the nighttime shooting was related to
the other shootings.
-
- "We have no idea," Ashland police department
official Pete West told Reuters.
-
- The Hanover County Sheriff's Office said the area was
being quarantined following the nighttime incident.
-
- West could not identify the victim, who was alive following
the incident.
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- "They are unaware at this time if the shooting is
related to incidents in Northern Virginia and Maryland. And the area is
being quarantined and treated as such," according to a statement released
by the Hanover County Sheriff's Office.
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- HIGHWAYS BLOCKED
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- Authorities cordoned off major highways around Ashland
in an effort to find the culprit, with a police helicopter hovering overhead.
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- Police have been using ballistics tests to link the October
sniper shootings. The last shooting definitively linked to the sniper took
place on Monday in Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington suburb. Police
said the sniper fatally shot a 47-year-old FBI employee in the parking
lot of a Home Depot store at 9:15 p.m.
-
- None of the previous sniper shootings took place during
a weekend.
-
- In another development, police earlier on Saturday scoured
a seized truck and examined a bullet casing found inside it as they pursued
a possible link to the sniper. Police said they had not ruled out that
the lead might be connected to the sniper.
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- Police, who have said a white box truck was seen at more
than one of the crime scenes, were poring over such a vehicle on Saturday
and ran ballistics tests on a bullet casing found inside. They seized the
truck from a rental agency on Friday near Dulles International Airport
in suburban Virginia.
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- Police said on Saturday they would not announce the test
results until Monday.
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