Britain shooting leaves 13 dead, 25 injured (Second Lead)

LONDON - Twelve people were killed and 25 wounded by a lone gunman in Britain Wednesday in a shooting spree described by the police as a “terrifying and horrific incident.”

The suspected killer, identified as 52-year-old taxi driver Derrick Bird, was later found dead in a forest after taking his own life, police said. Two weapons were recovered.

The attacks took place in the Lake District of Cumbria in northwest England, an area popular with tourists.

“This has shocked the people of Cumbria and around the country to the core,” regional chief constable Stuart Hyde said.

“While this was a terrifying and horrific incident, it is by its nature very unusual and truly exceptional,” he said.

Police were investigating 30 different crime scenes following the killer’s rampage through three local towns and a number of villages.

“We’ve got a lot of evidence to recover. The 25 injured are in a range of conditions,” said Stuart.

Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament that the government would do everything possible to help the relatives of the victims and the communities shattered by the “shocking tragedy”.

The shooting spree started at around 0930 GMT) in the coastal town of Whitehaven, where Bird murdered a colleague before driving off to blast at other victims, Stuart said.

Eyewitnesses spoke of their horror at seeing the attacker driving through the town with a shotgun hanging from the window of his taxi, leaving behind bodies lying in the street.

“There are victims everywhere,” one eyewitness told the BBC.

The gunman continued his attacks in the nearby towns of Seascale and Egremont, as the police were on his trail, urging people on loudhailers to stay indoors for their own safety.

The nearby nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, where 16,000 people work, was temporarily closed down.

Reports said one of the victims was a friend of the suspected gunman, while a farmer had been shot at point-blank rage in a field.

Stuart said there was not yet a clear motive for the crime. “We’re not really able to understand at this stage the motivation behind it or whether this was premeditated or random,” he said.

The killings in the tourist district of the Cumbrian lakes immediately rekindled memories of previous killings by lone gunmen in Britain.

They include the 1987 Hungerford killings and the Dunblane shooting of March, 1996, in which 16 primary school children were killed by a gunman who stormed a school gym.