Shooting In Ashland

[Guest wwF1587]

There has been yet another shooting after a five day break in Ashland Virginia..victim was a traver and so far is in surgery as of 12:18 eastern time.

[Guest TJH]

ASHLAND, Va. (AP) - 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. Authorites were investigating whether the Washington-area sniper had struck again, for the first time on a weekendThe couple was leaving a Ponderosa restaurant around 8 p.m. when the man was shot once in the abdomen, authorites said. He was rushed to a hospital and was undergoing surgery.

 

 

Some witnesses said they heard the shot coming from a wooded area 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 Ford Econoline van on an Interstate 95 onramp shortly after the shooting, but let the driver go.

 

 

Ashland is about 90 miles south of Washington and about 35 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two previous shootings this month were linked to the sniper.

 

 

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 be the 12th sniper shooting since they began Oct. 2; nine of the victims were killed. Before Monday's killing of FBI (news - web sites) 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 about 8 p.m. when he was shot. He said the man's 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.

 

Geller said the victim was taken to MCV Hospital in Richmond. Pleasants said the victim was conscious when he arrived and was able to talk to doctors; he did not know the man's condition.

 

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."

 

Ashland, with about 6,000 residents, is a favorite stop for travelers along Interstate 95. It is just off the highway and offers a variety of restaurants and gas stations. It is just north of Interstate 295, a bypass of Richmond and Petersburg.

 

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.

 

Earlier Saturday, authorities tested a shell casing found in a white rental truck for links to the sniper attacks.Police said it would be at least Monday before they could announce whether the shell casing found in the truck — a vehicle similar to one police have profiled in the ambush killings — is connected to the shootings.

 

The shell casing was found in a car seized at a rental agency near Dulles International Airport in Virginia, authorities said.

 

Meanwhile, high schools staged football games at secret locations so players could compete without fearing for their lives.

 

Jon DeNunzio, high school sports editor for The Washington Post, said some northern Virginia schools would tell his staff where games were being played only if the paper promised not to publish the sites. Washington schools refused to give notice, telling reporters when to show up at the schools so they could follow buses.

 

Fort Belvoir, an Army post south of Washington, offered the security of a military base for a football marathon for youth players from northern Virginia — 111 games Saturday and Sunday, moved from other locations for safety.

 

Games were played on nine fields hastily assembled from the base parade field and athletic fields by instructors from the base mapping school who surveyed the fields to set up the corners, and volunteers who laid out sidelines, end zones and yard lines.

 

Two of the sniper's victims were buried Saturday.

 

More than 400 people turned out at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Washington to remember Pascal Charlot, 72, a carpenter who moved from Haiti to Washington in 1964. He was gunned down Oct. 3 while standing on a street corner.

 

"He always found humor in every situation. No matter how bad things were, he would try to cheer you up," said Danielle Charlot, his niece. "How could someone take that away from this family?"

 

Near Pottstown, Pa., more than 100 people filled Christ Evangelical Congregational Church to remember Dean Meyers, 53, a Vietnam veteran, civil engineer, motorcycle enthusiast and huge Beatles fan. He was shot Oct. 9 on his way to his Gaithersburg, Md., home after stopping for gas in Manassas, Va.

 

Meyers' brother Greg Meyers said he recently found a notebook containing his brother's notes to himself.

 

"They were notes pertaining to what it takes to be a better person," he said. "He lived that."

[Guest HartFan86]

Fucked up stuff. Sounds like the sniper guy got another one.

[Guest TJH]

I don't know what the exact laws are regarding punishments in the area of the attacks, but I hope they involve a large metal hook hanging from the ceiling.

[Guest HBK16]

This guy has seriously got to be stopped. This is unreal. If I lived in that area, I would not leave my house. Whats scary is the question of not if he will strike again but how many times...

[Guest The Electrifyer]

The sniper left a message to the police too, now. The police want the sniper to call that number, this guy is insane.

[Guest HBK16]

Yeah I watched the conference with the cops. When he said that everyone looked so shock.

[Guest Big Poppa Popick]

Wait...

 

he left a message!

 

someone explain this for me

[Guest HBK16]

The police chief at the center of the Washington-area sniper investigation revealed Sunday that someone left a message at the site of Saturday's shooting outside an Ashland, Virginia, restaurant.

 

"To the person who left us a message at the Ponderosa last night, you gave us a telephone number," Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said in a short news conference. "We do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided."

 

 

Moose did not take any questions, or elaborate.

 

A 37-year-old man was shot Saturday night in the parking lot of the restaurant, about 90 miles south of Washington on Interstate 95.

 

Authorities were waiting for word from forensics experts to determine whether Saturday night's shooter is the same person who has killed nine people and wounded two others since October 2.

 

"We are acting as if it is," Col. Stuart Cook, the Hanover County Sheriff, told reporters Sunday. "We'll continue along that mode until it's proved that it is not."

 

Cook would not detail the kinds of tests were being conducted, but said that "all available forensic abilities" were being used by the agencies involved in the investigation.

 

The man was shot at about 8 p.m. EDT Saturday as he left the restaurant with his wife. As they walked through the dimly lit parking lot, the woman heard a noise she thought was a car backfiring, officials said.

 

"About that time her husband declared he had been shot and went to his knees," said Cook.

 

He was rushed to the Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond, where doctors removed his spleen and parts of his stomach and pancreas in three hours of surgery.

 

"We did not see any bullet fragments," said Dr. Rao Ivatury who performed the surgery. "But we did not go after the bullet because the patient was not very stable at that time."

 

He said the man was in critical condition and on a ventilator, but was conscious and could respond to people by opening his eyes and moving his extremities.

 

Ivatury said doctors expect to return the victim to the operating room later Sunday, and will attempt to retrieve the bullet at that time.

 

Investigators hope the bullet can be retrieved so experts can determine whether it was fired from the same rifle used in the sniper shootings.

 

If the shooting is confirmed as the work of the sniper, it would be the first attack since Monday and the first on a weekend.

 

Between 150 and 200 officers on searched for clues Sunday in a 2-3- mile area near the scene of the shooting.

 

An official knowledgeable about the investigation said dogs were not able to pick up any useful scents and that geographic profilers are "bewildered" by the location of this latest shooting -- 40 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two other shootings took place and previously the site farthest from the suburban Maryland area north of Washington where the spree began.

 

The official added that, because of the geographic complexity of the case, the lead authority might be shifted from the Montgomery County Police Department to a federal agency. But, he said, no such discussions have yet taken place.

 

- U.S. officials have questioned al Qaeda prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "to turn over every rock possible" in the sniper shootings, but there is no evidence that an organized terrorist group is responsible, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday.

 

- Funerals for two victims -- Dean Meyers, 53, who was killed October 9 at a gas station in Manassas, Virginia, and Pascal Charlot, 72, shot October 3 in Washington -- were held Saturday.

 

- Authorities Saturday downplayed the possibility that a white box truck that police seized Friday was linked to the case. Investigators searched the truck, and examined a shell casing found in the back, but a source told CNN "We don't have high hopes; it's not a high priority." Results of forensic tests are not expected until Monday at the earliest.

 

- The man who claimed to have witnessed last Monday's shooting of Linda Franklin at a Home Depot parking garage in Falls Church, Virginia, was charged Friday with knowingly and willfully making a false statement, police said. Matthew M. Dowdy, 37, faces up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor.

[Guest Big Poppa Popick]

holy fricking a, this guys going insane!

[Guest Slapnuts00]

holy fricking a, this guys going insane!

GOING insane!?! And this new cryptic message makes this all the stranger. "Call us at the number you provided"?!?! They commented after that even though this might not make sense to us, it will to the person who theyre talking to. What is this a code or something?!

[Guest HBK16]

I dont know but it sure is driving everyone insane..

[Guest Vyce]

I live in the D.C. area. Yes, we are losing our shit here.

 

The woman killed at the Home Depot last Monday? That's my shopping center. It's about two miles from my home. When I say "my", I'm stating that it's the shopping center I always go too. Hell, I bought groceries at the Shopper's Food Warehouse exactly behind the Depot.

 

And less than a week ago, this freak painted the pavement with some poor woman's brains.

 

It's insane.

[Guest Slapnuts00]

I live in the D.C. area. Yes, we are losing our shit here.

 

The woman killed at the Home Depot last Monday? That's my shopping center. It's about two miles from my home. When I say "my", I'm stating that it's the shopping center I always go too. Hell, I bought groceries at the Shopper's Food Warehouse exactly behind the Depot.

 

And less than a week ago, this freak painted the pavement with some poor woman's brains.

 

It's insane.

I live in Montgomerry County dude, its fucking scary as hell, knowing all this stuff is going on around here.

[Guest HBK16]

Well, I live in AZ and people here are like, I wish that shit was happening here then we wouldn't have to go to school. I feel like punching them right in the face when they say that. I know how it is like living in fear like that. I lived in some dangerous parts of the world and its not pleasent at all.

[Guest MrRant]

I wonder if the number is like to a payphone and he is going to call and then shoot whom ever answers figuring that he will add a cop to his scorecard.

[Guest TJH]

I just heard this on my late night news in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Some French officer cadets believe the sniper may be a deserter from the French military who deserted in September. It seems they matched a description of the shooter to the cadet who told his classmates he was going to Canada when he left.

 

This may be bull, but it is interesting.

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

It's interesting. The story on the MSN page credits the police as having found more than one tarot Death card, but the press only knew about the one. Good, I don't want the press giving away vital information that could get a lead on this guy. All he had to do in the past few days was watch the news to know what they're looking for and he's set. Switch vehicles or walk and they have nothing.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

If he was on foot, he'd get nailed for sure. To do a thing like this requires being able to move quickly, but not noticeably. Besides, there's nowhere he could stash a sniper rifle, unless it was something that could be broken down REALLY fast, and stashed in a briefcase or something. Still, that would be a bigger risk than hiding it in some secret compartment in an automobile.

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

I'm not saying he's on foot, just that once he knows the police are looking for his vehicle, he drops the gun (or gun pieces if its broken down) into a satchel, guitar case or whatever, walks along, rents a car or while he's at it, just steal one, and be on his way again. Yeah, the tipline is a nice idea, but broadcasting to the killer that you know what to look for just doesn't seem like the best course of action to me. But then, I'm just a college student...