TENS of thousands of pupils were locked into their schools yesterday after a 13-year-old boy became the Washington suburban sniper’s eighth victim.

The teenage boy was shot as he arrived at school in Bowie yesterday morning, starting a full alert once again in the nation’s capital, which was still on edge from the random killing last week of six members of the public and the non-fatal shooting of a seventh.

The pupil was in a critical but stable condition in hospital last night.

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bureau, which is in charge of the forensic investigation, confirmed last night that the shooting was linked to the other sniper attacks that have terrified the Washington area.

Chief Gerard Wilson, of Prince George’s County Police, said: “The projectile that was recovered from the victim this morning has been linked to the other cases in the Washington area.”

The elusive marksman has been dubbed “the beltway killer”, after the road that circles the city and gives easy access to the site of every incident so far.

All schools in the two Maryland counties that border Washington went into “lockdown”. Doors were bolted and shutters closed over windows.

Charles Moose, Chief of Police in Montgomery County, also hinted at police suspicions when he said that the killer was “stepping over the line, shooting a kid”.

He added that the investigation was “getting to be really, really personal now”, revealing the frustration felt by officers struggling to trace someone who has probably been shooting from a distance of several hundred yards and has left few clues.

Yesterday’s shooting took place as the boy turned up at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Prince George’s County, about 20 miles from the centre of Washington, shortly after 8am with his aunt. Most pupils arrive after 8.30am and there were few other pupils or teachers in the school car park.

However, police said yesterday that they were following a number of leads and were talking to several witnesses. The victim was flown to a Washington children’s hospital and underwent immediate surgery.

The shooting marked a departure for the killer, who had previously shot only adults going about the mundane chores of everyday life. Former FBI profilers said that the killer would continue until caught.

The spree began at 5.20pm last Wednesday, when a bullet was fired into a craft store in a shopping centre in Montgomery County, ten miles north of the White House.

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