US: The so-called Washington Sniper has apparently claimed another victim. A bus driver, Mr Conrad Johnson (35), father of two children, was shot dead at the door of his vehicle about 15 miles north of the city centre early yesterday.
Although ballistic reports still had to be made, it was believed the dead man was the 10th to be killed in the series of shootings by the same individual or individuals that have terrorised the US capital and its environs for over two weeks now. Three people were seriously wounded in the attacks.
Police set up roadblocks as soon as the shooting was reported, causing commuter traffic jams on Connecticut Avenue, one of the main arterial routes into Washington.
The shooting was reported at 5:56 a.m. in the Aspen Hill neighbourhood of Silver Spring, Montgomery County, close to the scenes of several of the previous sniper attacks and near an apartment building and the kind of wooded area the sniper seems to favour.
The bus was parked at a staging-place along Connecticut Avenue where drivers assemble at the start of their morning schedules.
The victim was standing at the top of the steps into the bus when the killer struck. It was not known if anyone else was in the vehicle. The victim was taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, where he later died.
Weapons experts from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms later conducted an intensive search of the scene, as police helicopters flew overhead. By midday the roadblocks had largely been removed.
The shooting led to an order to all Montgomery County schools to operate under "Code Blue", whereby all external doors are locked, entrances and exits monitored and staff maintain a higher level of watchfulness than usual.
Many children are being kept home for safety.
The first six shootings all took place in Montgomery County. No one was injured in the first incident, when a window was shot out at a craft store in Aspen Hill on October 2nd. Five people were subsequently slain in the county on October 2nd and 3rd.
Meanwhile, there were further reports on the content of a letter apparently written by the sniper and found at the scene of an earlier shooting. In addition to hints of wanting money, the writer threatened in vague terms to kill children.
The letter was described as "very wordy" and written in broken English.
In other developments, deportation proceedings have begun against two men arrested on Monday in connection with the shootings, a Justice Department official said. The men, a 24-year-old Mexican and 35-year-old Guatemalan had apparently been wrongly identified as having links with the sniper killings but were found to have entered the US illegally.
Another shooting victim, an unnamed 37-year-old man hit by a single bullet in the stomach outside a restaurant in Ashdale, Virginia, on Saturday night, remained in a stable but critical condition at a Richmond Hospital. Doctors have removed his spleen and parts of his pancreas and stomach.