The people of Washington are hiding out in their homes after a spate of killings by a mystery sniper - but the sale of guns goes on, reports Conor O'Clery, North America Editor
People living in the Washington DC area keep their televisions on continuously. The TV, with its constant "breaking news" flashes, has become the essential conduit for news of the war going on in the leafy streets and avenues outside, a war waged by a lone sniper who regards every single resident as the enemy.
He might turn up anywhere, at any time, to cut someone down going about daily life, shopping, walking into school or sitting on a bench. Or - most dangerous of all - filling the car with petrol. Four of the nine victims struck by the sniper in the last nine days were shot at gas stations. The most dangerous activity in the Washington area now is to fill a petrol tank.
A driver standing beside a self-service pump makes a stationary target for the sniper, hidden in trees nearby. The bright lights, installed for security, have instead illuminated his targets. Petrol stations in the area are mostly located on anonymous neon-lit strip malls near busy highways, making it easy for the gunman to escape. The news of another fatal shooting yesterday, at an Exxon station just south of Fredericksburg, Virginia, confirmed for hundreds of thousands of people the wisdom of their decision to stay indoors for as long as possible while the sniper is still on the loose.
Schools within a radius of 50 miles of the White House have been in "code blue" lockdown all week after the wounding of a 13-year-old boy by the hidden gunman as he walked to his classes on Monday. The school doors are locked during class hours and nobody goes in or out. In some schools, windows have been screened to prevent the sniper picking a target through the window.
There is no recess for the kids now and no after-school soccer or baseball.
Just a year ago children all across the US had to cope with the awfulness of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But the recent killings have had a more immediate impact on their lives. Everyone is a potential victim. Nowhere outdoors is safe.
One parent echoed a common sentiment on radio. "I'm scared and angry for my family, but most of all for my kids. They ask 'Why can't we go out?' and I tell them there's people shooting out there."
Thursday was a scheduled school holiday in Montgomery County, a suburban sprawl north-west of Washington, and parents fretted about what to tell young children who wanted to go out on their bikes or walk the dog. Parents drove their cars up close to the entrance to the Giant grocery store on River Road to let a passenger run inside, instead of parking on the vast area of tarmacadam. At the Montgomery County skating rink, kids scrambled from the passenger door to rush inside. At Montgomery Mall on Thursday there were no cars parked at the far reaches of the usually jammed car-parks, and inside there were fewer schoolkids than usual hanging out, even though it was a school holiday for teacher training.
"My friends are not allowed to leave home," said a 15-year-old girl from Pyle School. At least it was safer there than outdoors, where the free tennis courts and children's swings were deserted all week. Teachers struggled to keep the children's minds on study.
"The best way to fight against the randomness of this and the things you can't control is to concentrate on the things you can control," said Jamie Virga, principal of Viers Mill Elementary School in Montgomery County. "We know our instruction. We know our kids. We know our daily schedule. There's security in that."
After the shooting at Tasker School in Prince George's County, attendance fell by 30 per cent, but it was back up to near normal yesterday. Once safely inside the building, school was the safest place for children, but parents mostly drove them there rather than let them wait by the roadside for buses. School safety patrols, in which older students help kids off school buses, have been cancelled. Montgomery County decided to go ahead with football games under police guard at the weekend, but northern Virginia school districts cancelled all outdoor athletic events and Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties postponed weekend football games to Monday in the hope that the killer would have been caught by then.
"It's not an easy decision," said Howard Kohn, commissioner of the Takoma Park Neighborhood Youth Soccer League. "As a practical matter, once you cancel, when do you resume? Do you wait for an arrest?"
The annual Washington Area Girls Soccer League tournament, involving 372 teams, has been cancelled. Hotels in the region reported cancelled reservations as tour operators dropped trips to Washington, even though all but one of the shootings have occurred in wooded areas well outside the DC area. Bookings at restaurants dropped off, but pizza shops and Chinese restaurants enjoyed a boom in home delivery orders. Pizza Hut in Rockville has been delivering about 20 more pizzas a night since the shootings began.
People on keep-fit regimes are crowding into gyms to run on the treadmill rather than using popular routes like the tow-path along the Potomac river and Rock Creek Park in Montgomery County.
The shooting spree, which began with a single shot fired through the window of a craft store last week, has left seven people dead and two wounded, ranging from the 13-year-old boy to a 72-year-old man crossing a street at night in the DC area. With public frustration growing, every federal agency has been thrown into the most massive manhunt in Washington's history. Thousands of tips - from people who thought neighbours were behaving suspiciously to psychics with bizarre theories - have poured in, providing a logistical challenge for police operating three hotlines. The message left on a tarot death card - "Dear policeman, I am God" - found in a wooded area about 150 yards from the school where the boy was shot, has added to the unprecedented atmosphere generated by the killings. Washington is full of rumours about an undisclosed message on this card and on other fortune-telling cards found but not disclosed by the police.
Most incongruous of all, the gun shops where the sniper gets his deadly gear were open for business throughout the area. At Potomac Trading, the .223 calibre bullets he uses were on sale on the counter for $6.95 per packet of 20, and high-powered rifles were stacked on racks from $260 up.
The sniper had to be expert and proficient, said the shop's owner, Bill Printz, adding earnestly that he would feel very sad if the gun used to spread terror throughout the area had been bought in his store.