Phase one of this incident began with the murder of Mr. Bird's twin brother David and his solicitor Kevin Commons. Before departing, only 45-mile rampage across West Cumbria.
The second phase of his shootings took place between 10:30 a.m. and 11:35, when Mr. Bird was on the run. In this phase, shootings began in the Whitehaven area at around 10:30, and he went on to kill another 10 innocent people.
A call came into police at 10:33, reporting shots fired on Duke Street in Whitehaven, where sadly Darren Rewcastle was shot dead at the taxi rank. As soon as the call came into us, every armed officer in the county was deployed to the area from across the force.
The third and final phase of his routes took place between approximately 11:35 and 12:30 p.m. He was travelling along single track roads in an extremely isolated area and discharged his weapon several times.
At approximately 12:30 p.m, the last eyewitness saw Bird alive.We discovered his vehicle abandoned near Boot with a firearm inside, and knew that he gone to ground on foot. By this point, we were incredibly close to him, and officers surrounded the local areas and blocked off all escape routes.
There was a county-wide containment operation in place with armed police and helicopters. From what we know, at no stage did any police officer have the chance to end this any sooner.
