TERROR IN LONDON
LONE TERRORIST USES CAR TO LAUNCH ATTACK IN SHADOW OF BIG BEN, LEAVING FOUR DEAD
A British policeman points his weapon at a suspect on the sidewalk after a terrorist in a car mowed down pedestrians near Parliament in London on Wednesday, killing four.
It was just after 2:30 p.m. in London when a dark grey vehicle, driven by a lone terrorist, sped across Westminster Bridge toward the Houses of Parliament. What followed was the worst terror attack in London since the 2005 Tube bombings, and the worst on Parliament since the days of the IRA.
The car crossed to the wrong side of the road, mounted the sidewalk, and mowed down more than 20 people, including four South Korean tourists, three French teenagers on a school trip, and three police officers who had just had a ceremony of commendation. Some suffered minor injuries, others were knocked unconscious and left with what a doctor called “life-changing injuries.”
One man in a black suit was left lying on his back, a spurt of fresh blood visible under his obviously broken left leg. Three pedestrians, as yet unidentified, were killed. A woman ended up in the Thames below and was seen floating face down, but was rescued alive. It is not known whether she went over the barrier deliberately to escape the attack.
WE WERE JUST WALKING UP TO THE STATION AND THERE WAS A LOUD BANG AND A GUY, SOMEONE, CRASHED A CAR AND TOOK SOME PEDESTRIANS OUT. — RICK LONGLEY, WITNESS
The car continued over the bridge, passing beneath the iconic clock tower, and crashed headlong into the iron and stone barrier wall of the Palace of Westminster, the historical wellspring of parliamentary democracy.
Leaving the vehicle crumpled, with its engine smoking and driver’s door open, the attacker turned the corner to the main gates, as police shouted at people to run away. Eyewitness Sam Coates, a reporter for The Times, said he saw a man push through the guarded entrance, and make it into the interior courtyard.
“I saw him run towards the entrance to Westminster Hall,” Coates said.
Police were instantly in pursuit, and an officer confronted him, only to be brutally stabbed, over and over again.
Rick Longley told The Times: “We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out. They were just laying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben. A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman. I have never seen anything like that. I just can’t believe what I just saw.”
Two other officers opened fire, three shots in all, leaving both the attacker and the injured police officer lying on the ground about five metres from each other, just inside the gates. The medical efforts to save both were extraordinary. Some officers attended to the attacker’s injuries, while another held a gun aimed at him. Images from the scene show a large man with a shaved head and a beard being tended to by paramedics. Two knives could be seen on the cobblestones nearby.
A government minister, Tobias Ellwood, performed CPR on the stabbed officer as an air ambulance settled onto Parliament Square Garden.
Both efforts were in vain, though. Both the officer and the attacker died. Three civilians were killed on the bridge, and at least 20 were injured.
This was London’s first major terrorist incident since the summer of 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 people on public transit, and a similar attack failed two weeks later. It is the most serious attack on Parliament since an IRA bombing in 1974, at the height of the Troubles.
It comes exactly a year after attacks on the airport and transit in Brussels that killed 32 people, but it is unknown if that is significant. There has been as yet no claim of responsibility, and the dead attacker remains unidentified. He was mistakenly identified Wednesday as a well known British extremist, who in fact is incarcerated.
As in the attacks on the waterfront in Nice and a Christmas market in Berlin, this was an attack that began with random vehicular homicide. It then became an opportunistic attack on police. The attacker’s death at the hands of police might have prevented further carnage, though, as it appears he was set on entering Parliament.
Inside, Prime Minister Theresa May was hustled to safety. Counter-terrorism police swarmed in, dressed in plainclothes and wearing balaclavas. MPs were told to get on the ground and crawl to safety. They were locked down for hours, some in the House of Commons, supervised by tactical officers. Others, including MPs and members of the House of Lords, along with tourists and staff, were evacuated to Westminster Abbey.
Across the river, the massive London Eye ferris wheel was halted.
As the attack unfolded, the division bell had just sounded throughout Parliament Square, signalling to members that a vote was imminent, and many were on their way back from lunch.
“As part of long established and well rehearsed plans, Parliament was locked down and the Met responded in line with our plans for a marauding terrorist attack,” said Mark Rowley, head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police Service. “That response included uniformed and specialist trained firearms officers.”
Within minutes, the normally bustling parliamentary district was almost emptied of cars and people. Children from the Parliament daycare were given reflective vests and shuffled through an adjoining park to safety. Expressions of condolence started to come in, and many families were cast into grief and panic, but overall, the response of the British capital was characterized by calm resilience.
As night fell over the capital, a statement went out on Parliament’s Twitter account. “We can confirm that both the House of Commons and the House of Lords will sit tomorrow at their normal times,” it read.