Moving Forward
The aftermath of these horrific events saw many subsequent investigations carried out, including an extended look into Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, the store where the killer’s weapons were shoplifted from. According to sources at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the store owner had a long history of firearms sales violations, including other cases where weapons “disappeared” without a trace. Eventually, a class action lawsuit was filed against the store and its owners by several victims of the shootings, claiming that even after the events of the murder spree were traced back to the store, no changes were made to its operations.
MANASSAS, VA – MARCH 9: Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad (C) addresses the court along with his attorney’s Peter Greenspun (L) and Jonathan Shapiro prior to being sentenced to death for the shooting of Dean Meyers at the Prince William County Circuit Court March 9, 2004 in Manassas, Virginia. (Photo by Steve Helber-Pool/Getty Images)
In the years that followed the attacks, several memorials were erected to honor the fallen victims of the senseless sniper spree. These include monuments in Wheaton, Maryland and Rockville, Maryland. Seeing as these events took place only a year or so after the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, it took the country, and especially the area around where the shootings took place quite a while to recover and return to normal life.
Over the years, several movies and TV shows were made about the sniper attacks, including D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear and The D.C. Sniper’s Wife, a retelling of the events through the eyes of Mildred Muhammad, the wife of the older killer involved in the shootings.
Today, the world remembers these heinous attacks carried out on US soil, but the communities involved have largely recovered from the tragedy. If history shows anything, it’s that the American people have always used moments of tragedy like this one to band even closer together than before, denouncing acts of terror in unison in an attempt to make the world a safer place to live for all.