 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Va. attack might be sniper's 12th
Compiled from Times wires ASHLAND, Va. -- A 37-year-old man was shot and wounded while he and his wife walked to their car in a steakhouse parking lot Saturday night. Authorities were investigating whether the Washington-area sniper had struck again, for the first time on a weekend. The couple was leaving a Ponderosa restaurant about 8 p.m. when he was shot once in the abdomen, authorities said. He was rushed to a hospital and was undergoing surgery. Some witnesses said they heard the shot coming from woods at the edge of the parking lot, said Ashland police Chief Frederic Pleasants. He said no bullet had been recovered and no one saw the shooter. State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said portions of Interstate 95 were immediately shut down as police set up road blocks. She said it was too early to tell if the shooting was related to sniper attacks. Maryland State police Sgt. William Vogt said troopers were on the lookout for a white van with a ladder rack. A sniper task force was on its way to the scene, said Montgomery County police Capt. Nancy Demme. Pleasants said there was an early report of a white van near the shooting. He said the Hanover County Sheriff's Office had stopped a white Econoline van on an Interstate 95 onramp, but let the driver go. If the shooting turns out to be related, it would be the first time the sniper attacked on a weekend; it also would follow the longest lull in between shootings as the break in the spree had stretched into a fifth day. It would also be the 12th sniper shooting since they began Oct. 2; nine of the victims were killed. Before Monday's killing of FBI analyst Linda Franklin at a Fairfax County Home Depot store, the longest gap between shootings was three days. Pleasants said the victim and his wife were walking to a car in the parking lot behind the restaurant, which is near I-95's Exit 92 in Hanover County, about 8 p.m. when the victim was shot in the abdomen. He said his wife heard a sound, but didn't recognize it as a gunshot, then saw her husband take about three steps before collapsing. Pleasants said the couple was traveling and had stopped to gas up and get something to eat, but did not say where they are from. The shooting was similar to the other attacks in that it occurred outside, near a major road or highway. As in the sniper attacks, Saturday night's victim was hit once. The shooting was, however, more distant from Washington than any of the others. Geller said the victim was taken to Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond. Pleasants said the victim was conscious when he arrived and was able to talk to doctors. According to initial reports, he was in stable condition. Ashland is about 90 miles south of Washington and about 35 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two shootings this month were linked to the sniper. Lt. Doug Goodman, spokesman for the Hanover County sheriff's office, said authorities cordoned off the interstate and the parallel highway. Traffic was backed up for miles, Goodman said. He said they don't have any physical evidence yet to connect this to the other sniper shootings. "We are not taking any chances. We are deploying our resources as if it's connected. Better safe than sorry." However, he said, "The area is being quarantined and treated as such." Raymond Loving, who owns a Texaco gas station about 50 yards from the steakhouse, told CNN a woman came into his gas station and said someone had been shot in the parking lot. "She didn't see anything. She just heard a loud boom," Loving said. An employee at a nearby fast food restaurant said in a telephone interview Saturday night that she was outside on a break and heard a shot. She ran to the parking lot and saw the man on the pavement behind the Ponderosa restaurant. Bystanders were trying to stop bleeding from his abdomen. Also Saturday, authorities tested a shell casing found in a white rental truck for links to the sniper attacks. And authorities in Stafford County, Va., were looking for a man who led police on an early-morning chase and escaped. The 37-year-old man is considered "armed and dangerous," but it is not known if he is connected to the sniping incidents. Police said they would not know until at least Monday whether the truck found Friday at Dulles International Airport, or the casing, would provide clues in the case. The cleaning crew at a rental car agency found the truck, which was similar in appearance to one sited at the shootings in Maryland. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was examining the shell casing, and police were searching the truck for fibers, DNA or other physical evidence that might be linked to the sniper, officials said. However, the Washington Post reported that the shell casing is of a larger caliber than the ammunition used by the Washington area sniper, law enforcement sources said, meaning the shell could not fit in the type of weapon authorities say the sniper uses. Authorities working on the sniper case were in contact with officials in Stafford, Va., Saturday to try to determine if the Saturday morning incident there may be connected to the shootings. Stafford County Sheriff Charles Jett issued an alert after a man in a white Chevy Yukon SUV led sheriff's deputies on a chase along highways and local roads beginning about 3:30 a.m. Jett said the man was stopped because he was suspected of selling items stolen from a convenience store out of his SUV. When the deputy who stopped him discovered the man was wanted in Maryland on weapons charges, the suspect drove away. Sheriff's deputies used stingers to flatten his tires, but the man continued driving, at one point heading the wrong way on Interstate 95. The man finally pulled into a service station and ran away. He evaded officials in cars and in a helicopter. -- Information from Knight Ridder Newspapers, the Washington Post and the Associated Press was used in this report.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
