The shootings had "shocked the
people of Cumbria and around the
country to the core," Police Deputy
Chief Constable Stuart Hyde said.
Police said it was too early to say
what the killer's motive was, or
whether the shootings had been
random. One acquaintance described
Bird as "friends with everybody,"
but some reports said Bird had
quarreled with fellow cab drivers
the night before the killings.
Peter Leder, a taxi driver who knew
Bird, said he had seen the gunman
Tuesday and didn't notice anything
that was obviously amiss. But he was
struck by Bird's departing words.
"When he left he said, 'See you,
Peter, but I won't see you again,'"
Leder told Channel 4 News.
The first shootings were reported in
the coastal town of Whitehaven,
about 350 miles northwest of London.
Witnesses said the dead there
included two of Bird's fellow
cabbies.
Police warned residents to stay
indoors as they tracked the gunman's
progress across the county.
Witnesses described seeing the
gunman driving around shooting from
the window of his car.
Victims died in Seascale and
Egremont, near Whitehaven, and in
Gosforth, where a farmer's son was
shot dead in a field. Workers at the
nearby Sellafield nuclear processing
plant were ordered to stay inside
while the gunman was on the loose.
Hyde said there were 30 separate
crime scenes. Many bodies remained
on the ground late Wednesday,
covered with sheets, awaiting the
region's small and overstretched
force of forensic officers.
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.
Lyn Edwards, 59, a youth worker in
Seascale, said she saw a man who had
been shot in his car.
"I could see a man screaming and I
could see blood and there were two
ladies helping him at the time," she
said.
Deadly shootings are rare in
Britain, where gun ownership is
tightly restricted. In recent years,
there have been fewer than 100 gun
murders annually across the country.
Rules on gun ownership were
tightened after two massacres in the
1980s and 1990s. 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 primary school in Dunblane,
Scotland.
About 600,000 people in Britain
legally own a shotgun, most of them
farmers and hunters in rural areas.
Witnesses described Bird as using a
shotgun or a rifle.
Prime Minister David Cameron said
the government would do everything
it could to help the affected
region.
"When lives and communities are
suddenly shattered in this way, our
thoughts should be with all those
caught up in these tragic events,
especially the families and friends
of those killed or injured," he told
lawmakers in the House of Commons.
 |
|
Ho / Reuters
The body of Derrick
Bird was discovered
in a remote hamlet
in northwest
England.
|
Local lawmaker Jamie Reed said
people in the quiet area 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."
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 craic (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.
Click for related
content
"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."
Emergency services were still
working late Wednesday to identify
all the dead and inform their
families.
Rod Davies, landlord of Gosforth
Hall Inn near one of the crime
scenes, said residents were "used to
'neighbor's cat missing' stories
making the news — not this sort of
thing.
"There's a lot of fear. A lot of
people are expecting to hear names
of people they know."
