were arrested in an old dark-colored Chevy.

  • For much of the three weeks of shootings, police had no description of suspects and little advice on staying safe other than to be extra aware of your surroundings. They actually told people to keep moving when they were out in public - they would be harder to hit than a stationary target. Walk in a zig-zag pattern, they advised, so a sniper would have a harder time sighting in on you. I chuckled with friends about how this sounded like something out of the old Monty Python skit about the Ministry of Funny Walks.

  • Several victims were shot at or near gasoline stations. Stopping to buy gas created a window of exposure - a time when you were relatively stationary in a well-lighted place. Most of the shootings occurred in the morning or evening, so it wasn't long before most gas stations were largely deserted after dark. I had to stop at one late at night in the last few days before the arrests, and it was not a pleasant experience. Police had suggested that people crouch between their cars and the gas pump when filling up - again, the idea was to provide less of a target. I did not do that, but I did walk around my car a lot while the gas filled the tank.

  • On the weekend before suspects were arrested, we decided at my house that we would ease up a bit on the bunker mentality that characterized everyone's response more and more as the shootings continued. So, our children went to the park with the dog; and we even visited a shopping mall that contained a Michael's arts and crafts store - a business with locations near the scenes of some of the shootings. But we were quickly jarred back to the siege. That Saturday evening, a man was wounded in a sniper shooting in Virginia. Three days later, in the last shooting before the arrests came, a bus driver back in our county was shot and killed as he stood on the steps of his bus waiting to start a run.


As it turned out, this was an instance in which the darkest hour came just before the dawn. In a letter left at one of the final shootings, the snipers included a threat against children. After that, some school systems closed, and parents whose children attended those still open had to decide whether to continue sending their kids out to schools that the snipers had demonstrated were among the targets.

But then the two suspects were arrested. Now authorities are wrestling with one another over who will get to prosecute them first, and which jurisdiction is more likely to execute them if they are convicted. The two are also suspects in other crimes in other places around the country.

Eventually, the wrangling among federal and state crime fighters will be resolved. Ultimately, the prosecutors will have to prove that the two men in custody committed these senseless shootings. That will be determined in due time. For now it is enough to know that the killing has stopped.