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Yet another sniper strike

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

At a time when the Washington D.C. area is in jitters and in a near state of panic over the "Beltway Sniper'', there has been yet another fatal shooting at a gas station in Fredricksbug, Virginia. The victim has been described as a male who apparently was gunned down at an Exxan station. But there is no official confirmation on whether this shooting is linked to what has been going on over the last several days.

Police have swiftly swung into action by closing sections of Interstate 95 near where the shooting occurred in Spotysylvania County. They are also on the lookout for a white Chevy Astro van with ladder racks. At the time of writing, the police are isolating vehicles during inspection and are trying to determine the identity of the occupants.

The Friday morning incident in Virginia is the tenth in the series of deadly sniper attacks that have come to literally haunt counties in Maryland and Virginia and the District of Colombia. Today's incident took place at the same county where last Friday a person was hit in a parking lot of a crafts store. In all incidents, the victims have been randomly chosen and felled with a single bullet and from a distance.

The killing spree started last Wednesday in Montgomery County; and today's incident at Exxon makes it the fourth gas station that shootings have been taking place, after Shell, Mobil and Sunoco. A total of eight persons have been killed and two injured, one of them seriously, a 13-year-old middle school student.

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