MSNBC:
12 dead in U.K. shooting rampage
Suspect, a taxi driver who was 'friends with everybody,' also found dead
LONDON - A taxi driver went on a shooting spree across rural northwestern England, killing 12 people and wounding 25 others before shooting himself, police said.
Officers found a body believed to be that of suspect Derrick Bird, 52, in woodland near the Lake District village of Boot, Cumbria police said. A gun was found alongside the body.
The rampage in the county of Cumbria is the deadliest mass shooting since 1996 in a country where gun ownership is tightly restricted.
Police Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Hyde says the rampage "has shocked the people of Cumbria and around the country to the core."
Police said the shootings occurred in the small town of Whitehaven and nearby Seascale and Egremont, about 350 miles northwest of London.
The BBC reported there had been shootings in 11 locations, not all of them fatal. Witnesses described seeing the gunman driving around shooting out the window of his car.
Barrie Walker, a doctor in Seascale who certified one of the deaths, told the BBC that victims had been shot in the face, apparently with a shotgun.
Witness Alan Hannah told the Whitehaven News that he saw a man with a shotgun in a car near a taxi stand in Whitehaven. Photos showed a body, covered in a sheet, lying in a street in the town.
Local lawmaker Jamie Reed said people in the area — popular with hikers and vacationers — were in shock.
"This kind of thing doesn't happen in our part of the world," he told the BBC. "We have got one of the lowest, if not the lowest, crime rates in the country."
Handguns banned in Britain
Multiple shootings are rare in Britain, where gun ownership is tightly restricted and handguns are banned.
In 1987, gun enthusiast Michael Ryan killed 16 people in the English town of Hungerford. In 1996, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at a kindergarten in Dunblane, Scotland.
Glenda Pears, who runs L&G Taxis in Whitehaven. said one of the victims was another taxi driver who was a friend of Bird's.
"They used to stand together having a (laugh) on the rank," she said. "He was friends with everybody and used to stand and joke on Duke Street."
Sue Matthews, who works at A2B Taxis in Whitehaven, said Bird was self-employed, quiet and lived alone.
"I would say he was fairly popular. I would see him once a week out and about. He was known as 'Birdy,'" she said.
"I can't believe he would do that — he was a quiet little fellow."
4 comments:
image of shooter
Daily Mail has more
An eyewitness described the gun as "a snipers rifle with a large telescopic sight" but maybe he had a shotgun as well.
MR: I think you were going to say that because gun laws are so strict here no one was able to defend themselves.
On the other hand we would have many more shootings if guns were legal - just think of all those muslims able to acquire guns easily . . . doh!, I forgot they have stashes of arms in the mosques.
Outlaw guns and only the outlaws will have them.
And the government.
And the muslims.
But I repeat myself.
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