Three killed in stabbing attack in English park
READING, England — Three people were killed in a stabbing attack in a park in the southern English town of Reading on Saturday, an assault police were treating as terrorism-related.
Police said they arrested a man at the scene. They did not confirm whether anybody had died but several media reports said three people had been killed.
A witness quoted by the Mirror newspaper said the knifeman “shouted some unintelligible words” before stabbing people who had gathered in the park on a sunny summer evening in Reading, about 65 km west of London.
Lawrence Wort, a witness who spoke to the BBC, said the attack began when a man suddenly veered toward a group of about eight to 10 friends and began stabbing them, “so the first three he got so completely out of the blue, he got very badly.”
Wort said the assailant locked eyes with him and the person he was with and started coming toward them, but they ran away to safety, at which point the man turned back to attack another group.
When everyone started running from the scene, the attacker ran from the park, Wort said.
While Wort described a single attacker, it was not yet clear if he was the only person involved in the stabbings.
“My thoughts are with all of those affected by the appalling incident in Reading and my thanks to the emergency services on the scene,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
Video footage posted on Twitter showed paramedics rushing to help at least three people on the ground bleeding.
Matt Rodda, the MP for Reading, said the park, located in a historic area of the town, was typically busy on a Saturday evening.
“It’s used by people to sit and meet with friends and obviously at the moment people have been meeting there, observing social distancing, and just chatting to friends peacefully in a park,” Rodda told Sky News.
“This incident happened in that kind of environment so it’s really quite deeply shocking for local people.”
Current coronavirus restrictions mean venues like pubs are closed, so people in Britain gather in parks in the evenings to meet friends.
The head of the local council authority in Reading, Jason Brock, said his thoughts were “with the families of all those who have died or have been injured.”
The attack in Reading took place at the site of a Black Lives Matter anti-racism protest in the town earlier on Saturday, but police said it did not appear to be connected.