Killer Escalates Fear Factor in D.C. Community

WASHINGTON —  At a service station in Maryland, manager Danny Tomasian has parked an assortment of vehicles to block the line of fire to his gas pumps.

At a busy restaurant in Virginia, customers have been avoiding the usually popular sidewalk tables, opting for indoor seating. A region where people pride themselves on having reported for work the day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon is now dealing with a more insidious form of terror, as yet another shooting--this one in Fredericksburg, Va., on Friday--sank the area into deeper fear.

“We lost our innocence on Sept. 11, and now we’re losing it again,” said Sally Greenberg, a lawyer with a 7-year old son. “We realize that we can be at risk just going about our daily routine.”

Indeed, the life patterns of nearly 5 million area residents are being hurriedly revised to counter the threat of the sniper, who before Friday had killed seven and wounded two. Teenagers are being told to stay indoors. Dog walkers are avoiding parks. Motorists duck and cover as they pump gas, while their passengers hunker down in their seats.

“I walk my son into school every day,” said Greenberg, who lives in Washington. “I make sure that I see him go in.” She did not feel comfortable giving her son’s name.

“His recesses have all been eliminated, and that is rough for a little kid,” she continued. “The first day, he told us, ‘They’re keeping us inside and they won’t tell us why.’ We explained there was a bad guy shooting people. When he went to bed that night, he said, ‘I’m scared of that guy.’

“I said, ‘He doesn’t get people inside their houses.’ ”

The shooter “has pretty much succeeded in terrorizing the community,” she said.

John Muncie and Jody Jaffe, due to get married in their Silver Spring, Md., backyard on Sunday, said five guests from North Carolina had just canceled plans to attend. Two other friends had called from Boston to gingerly ask if they would be safe.

“We had to assure them this guy is not stalking us,” Muncie said.

At Piney Branch Elementary School in nearby Takoma Park, parents were drafted to take turns as front-door guards, checking IDs before allowing anyone into the building. A steady rain kept students indoors, which was just as well since all outdoor recess and sports were canceled.

A new third-grade teacher said she is terrified each time she walks to and from the subway station now. Students in her class, she said, had asked that morning if they would get shot through the window.

“I’m ready to move back to Indiana,” she said. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen there.”

Some long-scheduled events will go on today, including “The Taste of D.C.,” a three-day downtown festival of food and music. And the Library of Congress National Book Festival--hosted by First Lady Laura Bush and featuring more than 70 authors, illustrators and storytellers--will take place on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol and The Mall. But Capitol police are taking extra security measures, including enclosing the area with snow fences, limiting entry and exit ways and using hand-held metal detectors to check festival-goers.

“People are in a funk,” said Tim Gibson, manager of Mexicali Blues, a Mexican/Salvadoran restaurant in Arlington, Va. “People who would normally be out are second-guessing themselves. The longer this takes to resolve, the more effect it will have on people.”

Like most restaurants on trendy Wilson Boulevard, Mexicali Blues offers sidewalk seating. But on a clear day earlier in the week, Gibson said he looked down the street at lunchtime and saw few customers dining outdoors.

Business was at a standstill at a service station four blocks away from Friday’s fatal shooting near Fredericksburg, which has many similarities to the others but has not yet been forensically linked to them. Zulfiquar Ali, manager of the Four Mile Fork Shell station, spent the afternoon counting cigarette cartons and sodas because there was nothing else to do. “Business is very, very bad,” Ali said. “People are scared.”

Mike Dunavant, an assistant manager at a nearby Food Lion supermarket, said employees as well as customers are fearful for their safety.

“After I heard about the shooting this morning, I had to get gas,” he said. “I was standing there thinking, ‘It could be me.’ ”

Tomasian, the Bethesda, Md., gas station manager, remained defiant. “This is not going to stop capitalism,” he said. “This is not going to stop the American way.”

But he added that small-business owners must take the initiative and reassure their customers that they are taking steps to protect them.

“I basically keep my eyes open and tell my guys to keep their eyes open,” he said. “You try to reassure customers. You put up as many obstacles as you can to make it as difficult as possible” for the shooter.

Doug Church, a labor union communication manager, said he still patronizes the Montgomery County, Md., shopping areas near where the shooter attacked his first five victims. One of them was killed on a bench outside Church’s favorite rotisserie chicken eatery. Church and his wife have warily kept going to their neighborhood stores. But no longer will they stroll together in the park.

“Even though you play the odds, and they are very slim that something would happen, why put yourself in that position?” asked Church.

When Church walks his dog early in the morning, he scans the woods near his house and tries to use parked cars for cover.

“The mind plays tricks on you, and you get an unsettling feeling,” he said. “You’re thinking about the worst all the time. I hate the fact that one person has created this kind of state of mind in this area. I’m more angry than scared of living in the Washington area.”

Steve Piacente, a federal employee who lives in Montgomery County, said his 13-year-old son, Nick, has been ordered to remain indoors. His two daughters, who are older, have been admonished not to linger in open spaces.

When a 13-year-old boy was gunned down outside a middle school in neighboring Prince George’s County this week, “it really hit home,” Piacente said.

He imagined himself in the place of the critically wounded boy’s parents, waiting outside the operating room for a word from the surgeon.

His own son plays several sports. “He plays tennis, baseball, he goes to karate,” Piacente said. “Normally, I would much prefer that he do that. Now, you have to worry about ‘Is he a developing athlete, or is he a target?’ The idea that he could be a target just frightens me.”

Schools around the region have become like cloisters. Outdoor athletic contests, including dozens of football games and some homecoming events, have been canceled. Security has been increased everywhere, particularly when students arrive and depart.

Paul Regnier, a spokesman for the largest school system in the area, has found his job turned upside down. Before the shootings, he was paid to promote Fairfax County, Va., schools in the local and national media--the more exposure, the better. Now he is working just as hard to make sure that the system gets as little notice as possible.

“We’re not doing any interviews on this until they catch that guy,” Regnier said. “We are trying to keep our name out of the media.”

Superintendent Daniel Domenech summed up the tenor of the times in an open letter to parents.

“There is no question that we are living in a paradox,” he wrote. “We are determined to keep our lives as normal as possible, but, to feel safe, we find we must postpone events that are important to our children and us. It is not comfortable.”

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Times staff writers Bob Drogin, Arianne Aryanpur, Lisa Getter and Eddy Ramirez contributed to this report.