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Threat against children. scares, angers parents By ALLEN G. BREED and 16 in Chesterfield County public schools, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER about 13 miles outside Richmond.. SILVER SPRING, Md.-Kathy Franco Her children will be going to school : cased the strip mall off Cherry Hill Road today She said she has to trust that . twice before she decided to shop at the administrators made the right decision, Babies "R" Us store there. She wanted to but understands parents who want to! make sure there were no woods nearby keep their kids home.. where a sniper could hide. "It may be that I go to the bus stop with She was already angry that a sniper has them," shesaid. "I know that the mother who ' disrupted life in the Washington area. But drives the one in high school takes them right : when she learned yesterday that he was to the door, so that makes me feel a little specifically targeting children, her anger better I just refuse to be fearful." turned to rage. Back in Silver Spring, Ronald Briggs j "This isn't a person as far as I'm con- was thinking of taking his 2-year-old son cerned," she said as she pushed 6-week-old Jalen shopping yesterday for a Halloween daughter Katherine and 2-year-old son Liam costume. The curly haired boy loves the in a shopping cart.at the Silver Spring store. cartoon character Rolie Polie Olie. "Whoever or whatever this is, it's not a But after yesterday'srevelation, it could human being if he targets children. There's all be moot.. nothing that can justify that." "With that, if they don't catch him by . Yesterday, Montgomery County Police Halloween, I won't be taking him out Chief Charles Moose released a chilling anywhere, except day care and home," the ' passage from a note left by the killer at the investment analyst said as he held the . scene~ of a shooting Saturday at a boy's hand outside a Target store. "I'm : Ponderosa restaurant in AshIand.. sure they'll say that on the news and the "Your children are not safe anywhere at police will say that anyway." any time," Moose read in slow, unemo- Franco, 33, who is on maternity leave, tional tones.. has had to abandon her favorite McDon- The announcement. came as officials ald's Play Place because it's too close to ! investigated the shooting death of a 35- Interstate 95, It's just as welI: The door to year-old bus driver less than a mile from the jungle gym is locked, closed because of where the killing spree began Oct. 2. If the sniper.. this case is linked to the others, this would Since the shootings began, the Wash- be the sniper's 10th killing.. ington property manager has started After the first eight victims were adults, doing her grocery shopping at a nearby parents dared to believe the sniper would military base. Recently, she saw a woman not target children. Then a 13-year-old boy in the parking lot telling her kids to line was critically wounded outside a Bowie up "like little ducks.". middle school Oct. 7.. She now tries to do-the same with Liam Moose's announcement explained to and Katherine--so she will take a bullet Janet Stinebaugh why Richmond-area instead of them. schools closed for two days. "As a parent, we protect our children . "When the schools closed, I questioned the like a lioness," she said, her soft red hair : real motive. My first reaction was, what do they know that we don't know?" said I have to do to protect them, I will. "I Iook Stinebaugh, who has daughters ages 10, 13 at them as a blessing even more now."