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Gunman kills 12 in rampage through British tourist hotspot
AFP - 1 hour 1 minute ago
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BOOT, England (AFP) - – A gunman killed at least 12 people in a deadly rampage through a popular tourist region in northwest England Wednesday, before apparently turning the gun on himself, police said.
Some 25 people were injured, three critically, when 52-year-old taxi driver Derrick Bird spent over three hours driving through the Lake District, reportedly shooting at people from his car window.
During the killing spree, police warned frightened local residents and tourists to stay indoors for their own protection. Bird's body was eventually found in woods, along with a gun, near the village of Boot.
Police were baffled as to why he launched the attacks, which shocked the rural community popular with hikers drawn to its spectacular mountain walks. Timeline of the shooting spree
"We can... confirm that from our current indications 12 people have lost their lives, plus Derrick Bird (the gunman)," Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Hyde told reporters in the coastal town of Whitehaven.
Emergency services were attending around 30 different crime scenes and had recovered two guns, Hyde said.
"We are not able to understand at this stage the real motivation behind it or establish whether this was a premeditated or a random attack," he added, describing it as "probably the blackest day in our community's history".
People who knew Bird described him as a quiet man who lived alone and was nicknamed "Birdy".
"He was a very placid, very quiet man, kept himself to himself, so I do believe something pushed him over the edge," local resident John Kane told the BBC.
Media reports suggested a row had broken out between Bird and fellow taxi drivers on Tuesday night, and that two of those drivers were among the dead.
A doctor, Barrie Walker, told of "blood flowing in the streets" as he attended to victims, while the local ambulance service said it received 51 emergency calls as the tragedy unfolded.
One resident, Gary Toomey, recounted how he found one victim bleeding on the doorstep of his home.
"I saw a car screeching off and a man saying 'help me'. He was bleeding heavily from the side of his face," Toomey told local media.
"He said he dived out of the way of the shot, and the man in the car pointed the gun down and shot him again in the back from about six feet away as he lay on the floor."
Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "alarmed and shocked" by the shootings.
"When lives and communities are suddenly shattered in this way, our thoughts should be with all those caught up with these tragic events," he told parliament.
Queen Elizabeth II said in a statement she was "deeply shocked" by the "appalling" events, offering her sympathy to the victims' families and saying: "I am sure I share in the grief and horror of the whole country."
European Union Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso also wrote to Cameron to express his condolences.
Britain has tight controls on gun ownership introduced after two previous mass shootings in recent years.
In 1987, 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot 14 people dead in the town of Hungerford in Berkshire, southern England.
And in 1996, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children aged five and six plus their teacher in a primary school in Dunblane, central Scotland.
Registration is now mandatory for shotguns and firearms, which must be kept in secure storage. Nearly 600,000 people in Britain legally own a shotgun, and just over 100,000 a firearm.
Handguns were banned in 1997, and semi-automatic and pump-action rifles are also outlawed.
The Lake District shooting spree came barely a week after another local tragedy, a bus crash involving children from a school in nearby Keswick in which three people died, including two teenagers.
"The majority of children on that bus were from here in Whitehaven and surrounding villages and to be faced with this in such a short time is truly dreadful," said priest John Bannister from St James Church in Whitehaven.
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