Gunman’s Rampage Leaves Stunned Residents of Hungerford Asking ‘How Could It Happen Here?’ : British Town--and Nation--Seek Solace, Answers Amid the Carnage

HUNGERFORD, England — Along the sidewalks of this idyllic-looking western English market town, residents gathered in clutches, some consoling others, some questioning, but all appearing in a state of collective shock about what had befallen them and their community.

“This is really such a nice little place, it just hasn’t sunk in that it’s real,” said Sheila Hutchins, who manages one of the many quaint 17th- and 18th-Century shops that line Hungerford’s High Street.

But the heavy police presence, the television crews and the Town Hall flag hanging limply at half mast all confirmed the horrific truth: that a 27-year-old laborer born and raised here did arm himself with a Soviet assault rifle plus an array of other weapons and, on a lazy Wednesday afternoon, carry out an indiscriminate massacre that left 14 people and himself dead, another 16 wounded and a nation renowned for its composure in a state of stunned disbelief.

As police investigators attempted to determine what caused Michael Ryan, a quiet, apparently lonely, gun fancier to go on his rampage, the people of Hungerford tried to grasp the enormity of the calamity.

“We all know each other here,” Mayor Ron Tarry said. “There are really 5,000 victims of this tragedy.”

Special early morning services were held at the local parish church and at the Town Hall. Members of a local volunteer organization called the Roundtable set up an assistance center offering help to the families of the victims.

Along the row of neat cottages of Fairview Avenue, residents tried to determine who had died and who had survived after Ryan strolled through the area firing his guns. An elderly man on the corner was dead, but the full list of victims’ names wasn’t yet known.

Residents Reassured

Police had spent much of the night checking homes to make sure there were no additional victims and reassuring residents that the day of horror had ended.

At a High Street law firm where she works, lawyer Susan Burnell tossed away an empty brandy bottle, the contents of which had helped calm the office staff Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the shootings.

One 18-year-old employee had become hysterical after seeing one of the dead, she explained. “The town is rallying around,” she said. “We’ll get this behind us.”

“We’re trying to pull ourselves together,” said Ian Perbrick, a retired army colonel directing the local relief effort. “But there’s still a lot of disbelief.”

The shock from the blood bath extends far beyond Hungerford as an unsettled British public, always confident that such violence was a phenomenon of more aggressive societies, comes to grips with the fact that it happened not just in Britain, but in a peaceful rural setting that seemed to epitomize so many bedrock English virtues.

The affluence of modern Britain has brought new growth to Hungerford, including a number of new weekend residents who use the town as a pleasant rural retreat barely a 90-minute drive from London. But at heart, it remains a small, homogeneous community nestled amid cornfields in the rolling Berkshire countryside, with a canal and one of the country’s finest trout streams nearby.

Official Ale Taster

Its streets carry such names as Orchid Park Close and Bulpit Lane. Its houses in many cases have names in addition to numbers, and its finest citizens annually elect an official ale taster, a keeper of the keys and an honorary blacksmith.

War veterans recalled that in June, 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed 50,000 Allied troops on the town common.

Until Wednesday, about the most violent incidents in the memory of most Hungerford residents were the suicide a few years ago of Lord Fermoy, an uncle of Princess Diana of Wales, and a nearby train derailment 10 years ago, in which the only real casualty was a railroad signal box.

No policeman ever patrolled Hungerford wearing a gun.

No Policemen Fired

Indeed, Thames Valley Police Chief Colin Smith told reporters Thursday that even though many of his men were temporarily issued weapons after Ryan began shooting, they did not fire a single shot during the ordeal.

As dawn broke over the country Thursday in the wake of the slaughter, national television and radio commentators interviewed a parade of psychiatrists and social scientists probing for explanations, but above all, a perceptible sense of mourning hung over the country.

“Yesterday, Something Uniquely English Died Too,” said the headline over a commentary in the London Daily Mail, which observed that, in addition to the 15 dead, the massacre had also killed the belief that “it could never happen here.”

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher interrupted her vacation to visit the town and the hospital in the city of Swindon, where most of the 16 wounded remain.

“There are not words in the English language to adequately describe what has happened,” she said. “It is an evil crime.”

The motive for Ryan’s rampage was far from clear more than 24 hours after he ended the ordeal by shooting himself. But here in this close-knit community, where almost everyone knows almost everyone else, a picture emerged of Ryan as a very lonely young man.

Dozens of residents interviewed along High Street claimed at least one friend among the victims, yet none said they knew Ryan other than vaguely by sight. Ryan’s mother, Dorothy, was well liked because she helped serve lunch in the local school cafeteria, but Ryan himself was invariably described as a strange loner.

“He was quiet,” commented a resident who lived within sight of the Ryan home. “He had a big black Labrador (retriever) and was always giving it commands.”

‘A Bit of an Oddball’

An acquaintance, Chris Bowsher, 28, described Ryan as “a bit of an oddball,” while a former manager at the construction firm that employed him described Ryan as “a very pleasant chap who somehow wasn’t getting to grips with life.”

Police, too, had few details. Police Chief Smith was unable to confirm earlier reports that Ryan had been a dealer in rare guns.

Smith said the police had talked briefly with Ryan, after cornering him in a second-floor classroom of a local school.

“He was lucid and reasonable,” Smith said. “He expressed concern that he had shot his mother. He expressed the view that it was strange he could shoot others but not himself.”

Shortly after that conversation, Smith said a muffled shot was heard, and when police later stormed the building, they found Ryan dead on the floor.

Gun-Control Review

Police confirmation that Ryan had been legally permitted to have five weapons upset Hungerford residents and touched off a bipartisan outcry for tighter gun controls.

Thatcher pledged a review of Britain’s gun-control legislation, already among the strictest in the Western world. Only in recent years have some regular police officers been authorized to carry firearms.

Permit applicants must have no prior criminal record, must state a good reason for possessing a weapon and prove that they are equipped to keep the weapon securely. In most cases, police require that weapons be stored in a locked, steel chest that is fixed to a wall.

Except for hunting shotguns, weapons remain relatively rare in Britain, primarily because controls are so tight.

However, they were loose enough for Ryan to obtain permits for three handguns and two rifles, including a Soviet-made Kalashnikov assault rifle. His memberships in two gun clubs were cited as valid reasons for owning a weapon.

The manager at one of those gun clubs said Ryan had practiced nine times in the past five weeks and had always been “safety minded” with his weapons.

The call for tighter gun controls has already begun to shift the national spotlight away from Hungerford, but few in this community believe that things will remain as they were.

“I’m sure we’ll pull together to get through this tragedy,” Mayor Tarry said thoughtfully. “But it will never be quite the same again.”