<p>I am shocked that he is already at this point.</p>
<p>Living in the VA area that he attacked, he changed the school system forever. Prior to the attacks you could easily walk in and out of any building, now even in the elementary you are forced to go to the office and handing over a picture id before going to a classroom. They now have only 1 door unlocked to enter during school hours. I recall our youngest was in 2nd grade and he could not comprehend why soccer practices were cancelled, or why they could not have outdoor recess. When we speak of school memories, he always says I remember when I was in 2nd grade…all of them are about those few weeks in the fall of 2002.</p>
<p>So many things have changed in the last decade…with the Columbine tragedy and others to follow. Some younger children will not know any other way.
I for one am glad that he will be executed</p>
<p>Bulletandpima I live in MD and recall everything you mentioned. My S could not walk the block from day care to the school. We had to drop them off as close as possible to the entrance to the school. No outdoor recess, no sports practice, and no playing outside. My S was a pre-teen at the time and I remember the shooting at a MD school about 20 minutes from our house.</p>
<p>Being on the VA side, Bullet slugs and I remember dropping him off one morning and the lot was filled with cars, but nobody standing outside. They all waited in their cars and would run to the buses when they pulled up. Same with drivers picking up slugs. Mainly because most were in uniforms and they felt that they would be a prime target, and the fact that this slug line was just like his other spots, easy on and off access to a major highway with a high amount of traffic that it would be difficult to figure out who did it.</p>
<p>B&P,
I remember that time. My husband was pumping gas on his way home from work along Leesburg Pike when Linda Franklin was murdered. The gas station was just a few blocks away from the Home Depot. All games and practices were cancelled. It was eerily quiet on the weekends, no kids were out playing. Nobody was out shopping.</p>
<p>Count me as a “local” who remembers those days. The kids were 10 & 8. They were sad about talk that trick or treating might be canceled (in addition to recess and soccer practices). Fortunately the arrests came in time and we had a traditional Halloween.</p>
<p>Good riddance. I’m not usually a supporter of the death penalty, but I do make exceptions, and this is one of them. We lived in NoVA then, and my son went to school in NW DC. I’d usually drop him off in SW and he would take the Metro to Cleveland Park, walking a few blocks to his school on Macomb. He was scared. I was scared. For the duration, I picked him up and dropped him off.</p>
<p>Everybody did. On our block we even rotated the parent who would collect the children to walk them to the bus. The man is sick sick sick. I keep thinking about his ex wife and children in Baltimore how she said in an interview that she lives with guilt believing he did this with the purpose of eventually killing her and making it look like a sniper death.</p>
<p>It was, because they found evidence that his car had been seen there throughout the whole time period. As a matter of fact it was her neighbors that reported the car before the police went onto the white van/truck routine. They actually reported it before the first shooting and the report was lost in the mix. I remember driving 95 in our bumper to bumper crawl and looking at every white van wondering are you them? I also recall police pulling over white van/trucks everywhere.</p>
<p>I wonder how that truck driver will also feel on that day, since he was the one to report him. It is wierd even to this day to drive by where some were killed. I still can’t go to the Sunoco gas station in Manassas, or come off the Fredericksburg exit with out living it in my mind.</p>
<p>Yes, such memories.
My then senior, guitar playing son was stopped at a I-395 exit ramp. He was driving our light colored minivan. When asked to open the trunk, he told the officer that there was a large black guitar case in the back which might look like a guncase. IIRC, the officer had his hand on his weapon as my son opened that case to reveal his guitar.</p>
<p>That was very smart of him, could you imagine if he didn’t? If I recall correctly there were common occurrences of people driving vans that did not thin hat way and they made me news for maybe being the sniper.</p>
<p>I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, where the first group of murders took place. I don’t usually support the death penalty, but good riddance in this instance.</p>
<p>I live in Maryland and travel the I95 corridor frequently and remember the horror well. I had been at the service where one person was killed on several occasions. I haven’t been there since. I am never happy about the use of the death penalty though.</p>