British soldiers started shooting at stone throwers immediately after leaping out of their armoured vehicles in Derry's Bogside, a witness told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry today.
Mr Neil McLaughlin, who had been on the march which ended with 13 people being shot dead by paratroopers on January 30th 1972, said he was with about 20 others who ran at five army armoured vehicles and stoned them after they parked in a group at Rossville Flats.
In those days throwing stones at soldiers was regarded "almost as a sport" the former amateur boxer told day 91 of the inquiry in Derry's Guildhall.
He said suddenly soldiers, wearing the red berets of the Parachute Regiment, jumped out of the back of the vehicles.
"As soon as they were out, they started shooting at us," he said. "They did not line up in any organised fashion, they simply jumped out and started firing.
"There was a continuous burst of gunfire, not automatic gunfire but a long series of single shots, a fair few shots were fired."
Mr McLaughlin said he and others hit the ground. He was close to a wall and could hear bullets hitting the ground around the wall.
"I did not believe that the shots were being aimed above our heads, they were being aimed at us. I could hear the 'whoosh' of some bullets as they went past," he told the inquiry.
Mr McLaughlin said in further shooting he saw two people in his immediate vicinity - Mr Michael Bridge and Ms Margaret Deery - being shot.
Mr Bridge was shot in the leg by a soldier after dancing around shouting "Don't shoot the priest, shoot me" while the then Father Edward Daly tended the body of 17-year-old Jack Duddy, the first person to be shot dead on Bloody Sunday.
Mr McLaughlin denied seeing any IRA gunmen on the day. "I definitely did not," he said.
PA