This is a screen grab from a video seen on newscasts worldwide today. This bearded man, wielding a large sword, allegedly attacked several people in the east London suburb of Hainault this morning, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four others. "A 36-year-old man" -- maybe not the man pictured? -- was arrested at the scene and is in the custody of the Old Bill. [Will non-Brits know what you mean? Ed.]
Police received calls around 0700 local time reporting that a vehicle had been driven into a house, and that people had been stabbed.
The video shows a man wearing a yellow hoodie holding a long sword walking in the residential area.
The attacker was tasered and apprehended within 22 minutes of the first call to police. Unfortunately, within those 22 minutes, someone -- maybe the man in the video, maybe not -- stabbed five people.
A 14-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries but, a police spokesthingy said, he "sadly died shortly afterwards," (Walt can't imagine anyone dying in any way but "sadly".) Two other members of the public were injured and are currently in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Two cops were also stabbed and suffered "significant injuries requiring surgery."
What shall we make of these facts? The same police PR person made haste "to reiterate that at present we do not believe there is any ongoing threat to the wider community.” He added that police do not believe the attack to be terror-related.
No doubt that is why they have refused to provide any information about the man who had his collar felt [Will non-Brits know what you mean? Ed.] except his age. They said nothing about any words or shouts -- such as "Allahu akbar!" -- which may have been uttered by the attacker.
So we won't say anything about the use of a curved sword, aka a scimitar -- "a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures." Nor will we run the usual meme. Not yet....
No comments:
Post a Comment