Sniper Escapes After Latest Deadly Attack

The founder of a self-help organization for African Americans was killed by a sniper Friday morning, the latest in a series of public slayings that have spawned a new form of terror in the suburban communities ringing the nation’s capital.

The brazen attack--the 10th in as many days in the Washington area--occurred within 50 yards of a state trooper who was working the scene of a traffic accident on the other side of a nearby highway.

A small army of law enforcement officers scrambled to seal off nearby highways in an effort to corral a white van seen speeding away with two men inside. But the van, said to resemble a similar vehicle seen at some of the other shootings, eluded authorities.

Although police said they had not determined whether the man was felled by the same person believed responsible for the previous attacks, the shooting deepened the sense of frustration and fear gripping the Washington area.

“With a uniformed trooper directly across the street, obviously we’re dealing with an individual who’s extremely violent and doesn’t care,” said Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County sheriff’s office.

Like the previous nine attacks, this one involved a single shot from a high-powered rifle. Like three of the previous nine, this one occurred at a service station. Like all but two of the previous nine, the victim died.

A spokeswoman for Virginia Gov. Mark Warner said more bullet fragments were recovered from Friday’s crime scene than from the other sniper attacks. An analysis of the ballistic evidence was expected to be released today.

Friends of the family identified the victim as Kenneth H. Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia. Bridges, a graduate of the Wharton business school, was president and chairman of Matah Network, an organization he founded in 1997 to promote black-owned business enterprises and to encourage black self-sufficiency.

Bridges, a father of six, was driving to Philadelphia on a business trip. His wife had expressed concern about his travel through the Washington area in light of the recent shootings, his friends said at a Philadelphia news conference.

“It’s a real tragedy for the family, for us, for all kinds of well-meaning people,” said Gregory Montgomery, chief operations officer of Matah. “A guy like Ken didn’t have a bone of malice in his body.”

After the shooting Friday, officials sealed off exits and entrances to nearby highways and interstates, backing up traffic for miles. Motorists waited, sometimes for hours, to get through police checkpoints on the major highways along the East Coast.

Schools imposed immediate “lock-downs” requiring all students to stay inside. Friday night football games and other weekend outdoor sporting events were canceled.

Authorities urged citizens to be extra vigilant and to report anything they considered unusual. They were particularly interested in any sightings of a white Chevrolet Astro cargo van with ladder mounts on the roof.

At the White House, the killings have become a part of President Bush’s daily FBI briefing, which until now has focused almost entirely on the war against terrorism.

“The president’s heart goes out to the victims of these shootings and to their families and to their loved ones,” Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. “He understands how deeply troubling this is for the community and for people around the country.”

Bush was informed about the latest shooting shortly after it happened, Fleischer said.

Officials said Bridges was shot at 9:23 a.m. while fueling his silver Buick at the Four Mile Fork Exxon station on the outskirts of Fredericksburg, about 50 miles south of Washington.

The site, near the intersection of heavily traveled Interstate 95 and U.S. 1, was just one interstate exit away from the Michael’s craft store parking lot where a 43-year-old woman was shot a week earlier.

Inside the cashier’s booth at the Exxon station, 35-year-old Sandra Fortune heard what sounded like a tire blowout, according to her father, Eddie Fortune of Fredericksburg.

She looked up and saw Bridges sprawled in the center lane of gas pumps. “She saw the man die,” her father said.

Greg Williams was sitting in his van outside a Denny’s restaurant on the other side of U.S. 1 when he heard what sounded like a gunshot or a firecracker.

“I just looked over to the gas station, and saw the man lying there,” said Williams, 39, who is doing remodeling work at the restaurant. Bridges lay on the pavement near his four-door sedan, the handle of the gas pump still inserted in its side.

“Police got there real quick,” he said. “I’d say within 40 seconds.”

Williams, who lives in Maryland, said he is a hunter and is familiar with guns. He said he thinks the shot was fired by someone on his side of the street, perhaps near a stoplight on U.S. 1.

When he heard the shot, he immediately thought about the sniper. “I was hoping it wasn’t him,” Williams said.

Alvin Evans, a trucker and deer hunter from Warrenton, N.C., said he was about to leave a Howard Johnson’s motel across the street when he heard a loud “crack.”

“It was a high-powered rifle,” he said.

The Virginia state trooper on the other side of U.S. 1 heard the gunshot too. “He was directly across the street, so it probably took him less than a minute to get to the victim,” said Smith, of the Spotsylvania sheriff’s office. “He came directly across the street to the victim and assisted the victim until the rescue squad arrived.”

Richard Robinson, a flooring installer, entered a nearby Waffle House restaurant a few minutes after the shooting. Almost immediately, he saw Virginia State Police vehicles speeding up to the Exxon. “I’ve never seen cops move so fast,” he said.

Bruce Bingham, a mechanic at a Mobil station next to the Denny’s, was one of the witnesses who spotted the white van. He said he was talking to station owner Raja Abilmona when both heard a “boom.”

“Somebody just got shot,” Bingham later recalled telling Abilmona.

“No, it’s just a car backfiring,” Abilmona responded.

“No, somebody just got shot,” said Bingham, who spent 21 years in the Marine Corps and is familiar with firearms. “I said, ‘There’s a white van right there,’ and it took off.”

Bingham, a self-described “Chevy man,” recognized the vehicle as an Astro with a rack on top. It was stopped at the traffic light with its back to the Exxon station when he heard gunfire. It was raining, and he couldn’t see the driver clearly, Bingham said.

The van took off quickly and headed toward the entrance to I-95 a few hundred yards downhill, Bingham said.

A maid at the Howard Johnson’s told police she saw a white van driving erratically away from the Exxon station.

Police later picked up what looked like a yellow piece of paper in a ditch along the van driver’s exit route and bagged it, apparently as evidence, after shielding it from reporters.

Police have been upset at news organizations for reporting that officers found a Tarot card at the site of a school shooting in Montgomery County, Md., addressed to police reading, “I am God.”

A 911 call from a cell phone came into the Fredericksburg police only minutes after the shooting. Dispatchers transferred the call to the Spotsylvania County sheriff’s office.

Capt. Dean Martin, the patrol commander for the Fredericksburg police, said his pager went off at 9:32 a.m., nine minutes after the shooting, with a digital message:

“Possible shot fired in Spotsy county. Exxon on Route One. Caller heard a shot and then saw a man fall down. Info passed on to Spotsy.”

“We immediately, until proven otherwise, assumed it was part of the sniper incident. We pre-staged police cars in areas that would be used as escape routes,” Martin said.

At first, no vehicles were stopped.

But within seven minutes, he said, he got a description of the possible getaway vehicle from Spotsylvania County authorities.

“At that point on, we stopped every white van,” Martin said. “Basically, it was a chain effect. It occurred here ... and straight up the I-95 corridor. So basically what we did by doing this was create one giant gridlock.”

Martin conceded that the white van might not even be connected to the shootings. “We’re just going on the best information provided us by witnesses,” he said. “If it’s a red herring, we’re in a no-win situation.

“We’ve got to hang on to witness statements. But how do you fire a shot and jump in a white van within less than a minute?”

Hobert Epps, of Athens, Ga., drove toward police lines several minutes after the shooting with his girlfriend, Mary Mervin.

Epps, 36, said several sheriff’s deputies surrounded him, searched him and took him to a motel to interrogate him. One officer was holding a photograph, he said.

“They were looking at a little picture, and then they were looking at me,” Epps said.

“The guy had a mustache, but it wasn’t me.”

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said a trooper was working “a minor fender-bender” across U.S. 1 when the shooting occurred.

The trooper contacted the sheriff’s office, where a number of troopers and agents from other departments were discussing last week’s shooting in Spotsylvania County.

“They were able to respond from a very close area,” Caldwell said. “Once agencies heard the lookout, they knew what they had to do: close off the ramps and go with the best information we had at the time.”

She said police and troopers tried to pull over every van on every interstate, highway or side road from Spotsylvania County to the District of Columbia.

Despite their best efforts, the gunman wasn’t found.

“We’ve just got to keep trying,” Caldwell said.

“I don’t know how we could have acted any quicker in this particular case than we did.”

As a steady rain drenched Northern Virginia, teams of six to 12 law enforcement personnel, some accompanied by bloodhounds, searched the crime scene.

The officers represented a variety of agencies, including the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Marshal’s Office, Virginia State Police and police departments from a number of counties and municipalities.

ATF agents carefully examined an area of juniper bushes near a sign 50 yards from the shooting. They sawed off the bushes and searched the area with bloodhounds and metal detectors.

Late Friday afternoon, a Virginia State Police helicopter took evidence from the scene to the ATF lab in Rockville, Md.

Two FBI geographic profilers also arrived on a helicopter in Spotsylvania County.

“Anytime we get a shooting now, we’re going to treat it as if it’s related to this [sniper] case,” said Smith, of the Spotsylvania County sheriff’s office.

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Times staff writers Warren Vieth, Edwin Chen and Robert Patrick contributed to this report.