Before shooting 12 dead:

Briton forewarned of a rampage

BRITAIN: A British taxi-driver declared “there’s going to be a rampage” just hours before launching a shooting spree that left 12 people dead, and then turning the gun on himself, reports said Thursday.

Derrick Bird, 52, also wounded 11 people, three of them critically, as he drove through the picturesque Lake District region of northwestern England on Wednesday taking pot shots at passers-by from the window of his car.

Police warned local residents and the many tourists who flock to the region to stay indoors for their own protection, but it was more than three hours before Bird’s body was eventually found in wood near the village of Boot.

They believe he killed himself. Officers later recovered a shotgun and a .22 rifle fitted with a telescopic sight.

More than 100 policemen were working Thursday to retrace Bird’s deadly journey through the rural communities here, to establish why a quiet man, described by neighbours as a “normal bloke”, caused such devastation.

“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,” Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Hyde said in the coastal town of Whitehaven Wednesday.

He described it as “probably the blackest day in our community’s history”.

People who knew “Birdy”, as the killer was widely known, described him as a quiet man who worked hard, lived alone but was quite popular. He was divorced, had two children and had recently become a grandfather.

However, reports suggested Bird might have planned the attacks the night before, when he got into an argument with other taxi drivers.

“Afterwards Derrick shook all their hands and said, ‘There’s going to be a rampage tomorrow’,” one of his colleagues told The Sun newspaper. The Times also reported an old friend of Bird’s recalling that the killer had told him when they spoke late Tuesday: “I won’t see you again.” Boot, Thursday, AFP