Waves of fear, disbelief spread

Schools, stores, offices shut doors after killings

By Stephen Kiehl, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Tricia Bishop | Sun Staff

October 4, 2002

Schools locked down and barricaded their driveways. Merchants shut stores early. And shopping centers and gas stations, normally for people on the go, were brought to a standstill by police cars and yellow crime-scene tape.

From its bloody epicenter in Montgomery County, yesterday's stunning burst of five random killings sent waves of fear and disbelief through schools, offices and stores from Northern Virginia to the Pennsylvania state line.

"It's a little frightening. What can you say?" asked Linda Swanson, a librarian at the Kensington Park branch, less than two blocks from the Shell gas station where a woman vacuuming her van became the final victim.

"We were told not to go out for lunch or run any personal errands, for our own protection."

As word spread that police were looking for two suspects in a white truck, so did fear.

Schools in eight jurisdictions, including Baltimore's suburbs, locked their doors and canceled after-school activities.

Carroll County's commissioners cut short their weekly televised meeting at the urging of their emergency manager. Rumors spread about more shootings in Mount Airy and Towson.

And vigilant citizens in Howard County reported more than 50 sightings of white trucks - just like the one the suspects were driving.

"Whenever I see a [white truck] - even a post office van - I jump," said Jose Fernandez, whose Howard County home sits near the Montgomery County border.

No one ever expected this, not in the comfortable middle-class suburbs outside the Capital Beltway. Montgomery County had just 19 murders last year and a median family income approaching $100,000.

More than half the adults have college degrees, and they send their children to the best public schools in the state.

But in the tidy streets around the gas stations and shopping centers where their neighbors were gunned down, county residents wondered why this violence found their quiet communities.

"That's just too close for me," said Lisa Lewis, 34, as she picked up her children from Wheaton High School. She had to present photo identification before the school released her children. She didn't mind.

"We're going to sit inside the rest of the day," she said.

Though they declared themselves scared, Kevin Rizkallah, Ricardo Medrano and Mike Leffel, all 18, couldn't stay indoors. They hung out in the Shell parking lot in the afternoon - Medrano had already been over twice before - because horror and curiosity go hand in hand.

"Nothing like this has ever happened right down the street from our house," said Medrano, who has lived in the area for half his life.

Meanwhile, in the Aspen Hill shopping center next to the Mobil where a taxi driver was killed, Nick Boosalis sat in his empty restaurant and pondered closing early.

Usually the Cactus Grill, a Tex-Mex restaurant, fills its 85 seats at lunch. Yesterday, just a handful of customers made it in.

"I just walked up and down the shopping center," Boosalis said. "All the stores are basically empty. No one feels like shopping today."

Stores and restaurants were also mostly vacant at the three-level White Flint Mall in the Rockville area. But several shoppers said they wouldn't let fear keep them away.