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Remembering our area - DC Sniper
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DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad
October 2002, the Washington DC Metro area was locked down under fear of the DC Sniper attacks. With little information and no sense of pattern, the entire area was at risk.
It had only been about a year since the 9/11 attacks of 2001. New York is often most remembered with the September 11th terrorist attacks but with the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes, the Baltimore area was under a definite sense of worry that there were more planes. Baltimore is right in line for planes, trains, and automobiles between many major cities on the east coast. Many eyes were on the sky during September 2001.
So just over a year later, now Baltimore's eyes were on the ground, in the woods, at gas stations, at schools, anywhere and everywhere. The DC sniper had struck in Virginia, DC and Maryland in a variety of counties and was always on the move. Who was to say that he wasn't going to go as far as Columbia or Frederick or Annapolis.
My daughter was four at the time and her preschool was located in Howard County down nestled in a nice wooded area. There was a little playground and blacktop. But the kids were not allowed to go outside for several weeks. They couldn't see the danger. They didn't understand that there could be a man with a gun hiding in the woods ready to shoot one of them. They just wanted to get out of the four-walled room that was closing in on them because they wanted the freedom of the outdoors. They had no fear, but their teachers and caretakers did and knew what was best for them.
My grandmother was in her seventies at the time and lived in Bowie. The DC Sniper struck a child going into his Middle School. The Sniper showed no rhyme or reason in his killings. My grandmother was active with friends, family, and church. She could have been a target. But somehow she was not in the right place at the right time for once.
My mother lived walking distance from the Glenmont Shopping Center where the DC Sniper first killed in the area. She would often shop in Aspen Hill and had business in Rockville on a regular basis. I had driven past the Leisure World for years with the big metal globe out front. I had never been to the Twin Towers or any part of New York City but I knew these local cities and stores.
My cousin Sandi Bridgett from the Manassas area tells me that she lived one block from the shooting at the Sunoco station in Manassas where a life was taken. It was a very scary night for her and her family. Helicopters riding overhead, police everywhere and also our cousin, Brian Lacy was at the station at the same time it happened (Dean Meyers was shot at the station). With all the noise and commotion with the direct connection to someone you know, it feels as though the world is closing in on you.
Here it is seven years later and those times are a distant memory for some. But with John Allen Muhammad's execution scheduled for November 10, 2009, the DC Metro area sits and remembers what was quite horrifying at the time.
Many have conflicting feelings about the execution of such a terrifying person. Take those emotions that energy and turn them around to tell those that you love how much they mean to you.
"Every day is a gift, that's why they call it the present."
"For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." Isaiah 41:13 (NIV)
Other articles you might be interested in:
Don't let your soul get lost in the weeds
Careful what you wish for
Be still and know that I am God
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