ASPEN HILL, Maryland, 23 October — A bus driver was shot dead early yesterday and police were treating the shooting as an attack by a sniper who has slain nine other people in the Washington area this month.
Conrad Johnson, a 35-year-old father of two, was shot as he stood at the top of the steps of the bus shortly before 6 a.m., Montgomery County police said. The location, 24 km (15 miles) north of downtown Washington, is less than a half-mile from where the rampage began Oct. 2. In all, 13 people have been shot by the sniper in Maryland, Virginia and Washington — three were critically wounded.
"We remain concerned about the safety of all the people in our region," police chief Charles Moose said. "We realize that the person or the people involved in this have shown a clear willingness and ability to kill people of all ages, all races, all genders, all professions, different times, different days and different locations," he said.
Police put a widespread dragnet into place, clogging traffic on Connecticut Avenue, one of the main arteries into Washington, just as the morning commute began.
The shooting happened near an apartment building and wooded area along Connecticut Avenue. The bus was parked at a staging area where drivers get ready for their morning runs, state police spokesman Cpl. Rob Moroney said.
Agents for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms combed the area. A police dog searched near a basketball court in a park, and police helicopters flew over the scene.
On Saturday night, the sniper critically wounded a 37-year-old man outside a steakhouse in Virginia, investigators said. On Monday, police said they received a call about the attack, hinting it was from the sniper, but that the call was muddled.
"The person you called could not hear everything you said. The audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand," said Moose, who has been leading the hunt.
Moose did not disclose who received the muddled phone call, when it was made or other details. But investigators believe the call may have come from the sniper and that the caller was the person who left a note and phone number at the scene of Saturday night’s shooting, a law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity.
On Sunday, Moose publicly pleaded with the note writer to call authorities.
Media reports said the note threatened schoolchildren with violence, demanded money and sought to establish communication with police. The sealed letter of several pages set in motion a series of messages from police delivered through the news media, the Sun newspaper said, citing police sources.
The Los Angeles Times, citing unidentified federal agents, said the note was poorly worded, bordering on broken English.
The victim shot Saturday night was felled by a single shot to the stomach. He remained in critical but stable condition at a Richmond hospital yesterday after doctors removed his spleen and parts of his pancreas and stomach. Surgeons retrieved the bullet and ballistics tests linked the slug to the sniper.
With some districts now closing schools and many other public activities curtailed by the 20-day-old shooting spree, authorities are struggling to contain public alarm over the sniper. Moose said the population should be under "heightened alert".
Experts have highlighted how the killer has made the public feel vulnerable by randomly picking off targets as they carry out their daily business. "They are the most fear-provoking events," said Jack McDevitt, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
"Most people hear of a shooting and say to themselves: ‘This could never happen to me,’" McDevitt said. But the random nature of the shootings is designed to frighten the approximately five million people who live in and around Washington. "There is nothing you can do to make yourself less vulnerable," he said.
