Arrest made after stranger approaches, shoots Manassas students with BB gun
http://www.insidenova.com/headlines/arrest-made-after-stranger-approaches-shoots-manassas-students-with-bb/article_d6817310-ec25-11e3-97f1-001a4bcf887a.html
Police say an arrest has been made after a man followed a Metz Middle School student in Manassas on his way to school Wednesday morning and shot him with a BB gun. It is the second such incident in recent weeks.
Raul Soto, 24, was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with two counts of malicious wounding, police said.
According to a letter home to parents of Manassas city students, there have been two similar incidents in the last month.
The first happened May 13 around 2:45 p.m. when a 15-year-old boy and his sister, both Osbourn High School students, were walking home in the Battery Heights neighborhood near Mayfield Intermediate School. A man on a bike approached them and asked for directions. After talking with the students, the man pulled a BB gun from his backpack and the 15-year-old boy in the chest.
Afterward the man apologized, saying he intended to pull a prank, and left on his bike, according to a city police report.
The second incident happened Wednesday morning about 7:10 a.m. A 14-year-old Metz Middle School student told his school resource officer that he was walking to his bus stop near Rolling Road and Country Lane when a man approached, pointed to the crosswalk and told the student he should obey the law.
The man then followed the teen to the bus stop, where he pulled a BB gun from his backpack and shot the boy twice in the chest.
In both cases, the students were not seriously injured.
Soto was arrested at his home in the 9900 block of Shallow Creek Loop around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. He is being held without bond at the Prince William-Manassas Regional Jail.
In the letter home, schools superintendent Catherine Magouyrk encouraged students to be extra vigilant walking to and from school.
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