One dead, seven injured in Birmingham mass stabbing
LONDON: Police said they were searching for a man in relation to a two-hour stabbing spree in the city of Birmingham, central England, early on Sunday, that left one man dead and seven people injured, two of them critically.
The knife attacks happened in four locations in the city centre starting from 00:30 (2330 GMT), police said.
“We are treating all four of those incidents as a linked series,” West Midlands Police chief superintendent Steve Graham said. “We are searching for one suspect and inquiries to identify and then trace that suspect are ongoing.”
He said there was no suggestion that the attacks were tarbut geted at any section of the community or were gang related. “At this stage we can’t find a particular motive, but it does appear to be random in terms of the selection of people who were attacked,” he said, adding: “there is absolutely no suggestion at all that this is terrorrelated.”
Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab said he had no information to indicate the incidents were terrorism related the public should stay “very vigilant”. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that it was a “terrible incident” and thanked the emergency services.
The first stabbing was in Constitution Hill, police said, and the suspect then moved from north to south, to Livery Street, Irving Street and ending at Hurst Street. The final location is an area known as the city’s Gay Village, where people had been seated at outdoor tables eating and drinking.
Cara Curran, a club promoter, said she saw multiple people fighting in the street, though it was unclear whether that was connected to the stabbings. “It was one group of boys against another group of boys,” she told the BBC, adding that “racial slurs” were being thrown.