Friday, Oct. 25, 2002 | 4:31 a.m.
The arrests of two men believed to be the snipers who terrorized suburbs around the nation's capital likely sent sighs of cautious relief throughout much of the country.
Cautious, because we're not sure they're the only ones -- or even the ones -- who shot and killed 10 people and injured three others.
Cautious, because we now know something many of us may not want to admit.
It can, indeed, happen here.
Here, where communities are gated, yards are neat, streets have "Neighborhood Watch" signs and the stores are ones we recognize.
The most chilling part about the past month's sniper attacks in Washington, D.C., suburbs is that we all know the crime scenes, even if we've never traveled east of the Continental Divide.
Gas stations, school grounds, a bus stop, a public sidewalk and the parking lots of a craft store, a grocery store, a steakhouse and even a Home Depot. These are places we see every day. These shootings happened in our neighborhoods -- or could have.
It showed us just how easy it is to disappear into the normality of it all. Auto-driven development that takes people's eyes off the street and seals them behind windshields created the very environment in which these snipers could do their deeds and disappear.
"It's a dilemma of living where there's great separation and people have to drive everywhere they go," said Robert Fielden, an architect and urban planner in Las Vegas for 40 years and a KNPR radio commentator.
"It's easy to do what you're going to do and drive away," he said. "It could happen anywhere."
Even here.
"We do create the environment," Fielden said. "The whole valley is that way. All of the West is that way. It's problematic."
Gated communities are a marketing tool. We buy because we think the gate makes us safer.
"They're not safer," Fielden said.
He recalled a recent workshop in which Metro Police officers talked about the prevalence of crime in gated and nongated neighborhoods. There was no difference, the officers said. Gated communities are becoming a haven for methamphetamine laboratories because the gates actually add a layer of cover for the criminals.
"It's easy to hide inside the gates because you're less likely to be seen," Fielden said. "(Crime) is more likely to be seen in an area where there's an active street life."
The snipers made quick getaways partly because their areas of attack were easily accessed by automobiles. They could blend into the traffic flow and assimilate into the environment around them quickly, making it hard to get an accurate description of the vehicles they used.
But strangers stand out in communities where less driving is required and more people are forced to walk, Fielden said.
"You learn the people around you. You get to know them all," he said. "We lose all of that when we go to this extended residential living."
He fears Congress' opening of 233,000 acres to development here, estimating it could bring another 2.5 million residents to the Las Vegas Valley.
"It'll look like Los Angeles," Fielden said. "That's our model."
And as the shootings that preyed on our fears for 22 days have shown us, there isn't safety in such numbers.
archive
