School Shooting Linked to Sniper Attacks
B O W I E, Md., Oct. 7 -- A 13-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded outside a middle school in suburban Maryland today, and police said ballistics evidence indicated the attack was the work of the sniper who shot seven people — six fatally — in the Washington, D.C., area last week.
"The projectile that was recovered from our victim this morning has been linked to our sniper. We are continuing to follow up on leads," Prince George's County Police Chief Gerald Wilson told a late-afternoon news conference.
The boy was shot at 8:09 a.m., police said. He had just been dropped off at the Benjamin Tasker Middle School by his aunt, who was starting to drive away when she heard a loud noise, looked back and saw the boy slumped on the ground, Wilson said. The boy told her he thought he had been shot, Wilson said.
"He was already trying to stand up, and she encouraged him — she is a nurse — to stay still and she put him in the car," said Bowie City Councilwoman Audrey Scott.
His aunt took him to Bowie Health Center, a small hospital, and a Maryland State Police helicopter then flew the boy to Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., which specializes in traumatic injuries in children.
Frightened parents rushed to the school to retrieve their children, while police hunting for the serial sniper swarmed the scene. "I was nervous and scared I had to come up here and get here. I couldn't leave her here," said Patty Goff, whose daughter, Stephanie, is a student at the school.
"I thought there was a guy running around here like he might come into the school so I got really scared," Stephanie Goff said.
Tensions in the area have been running high since last week, when a serial sniper shot and killed five people in nearby Montgomery County, Md., and one in Washington. A woman was shot in Northern Virginia, but she survived.
‘Cowardly and Senseless’
Today's shooting indicated the sniper was still at work.
"Forensic evidence recovered today has been linked to the shooting at the scenes in Montgomery County, the District of Columbia and Fredericksburg, Va.," said Special Agent Joe Riehl of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
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