KNIFE HORROR AT THE HOTEL
Asylum seeker shot dead after stabbing police officer and five others in rampage at lodgings for immigrants
An asylum seeker went on a knife rampage yesterday, stabbing a police officer and five others in a Glasgow hotel before he was shot dead by officers.
Armed units were scrambled to the building where immigrants were temporarily being housed during the pandemic after the man began lashing out.
Among the injured was a 17-year-old youth as well as hotel staff, residents and a police officer.
Just two minutes after the attack began at 12.50pm, a heroic officer attempted to tackle the assailant and was critically injured after being stabbed around the eye.
Within minutes, back up from firearms teams arrived and the knifeman was shot dead.
Last night, Police Scotland declared the shocking incident was not terror related amid reports that a row about conditions at the hotel may have sparked the attack.
Refugees living at the hotel had protested about poor conditions just days ago.
The horror comes six days after suspected terrorist Khairi Saadallah allegedly stabbed three people to death in a Reading park shortly after being released early from jail.
Witnesses described a ‘bloodbath’ at the Park
Inn Hotel in the city centre. One receptionist was stabbed in the stomach and fell to the floor ‘gasping for air’.
The attacker then started lashing out at another staff member, who staggered outside to the hotel steps before collapsing.
The hotel handyman was also attacked and left with a ‘big puncture wound’.
The assailant is said to have run through the hotel knifing residents on the stairs and in the lift before being cornered by police in his room.
Last night five male victims including the 17year-old from Sierra Leone and four others aged 18, 20, 38 and 53 were recovering in Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
The Scottish Police Federation said a male officer, 42, wounded in the face was in a critical but stable condition in hospital.
An asylum seeker who gave his name as John said he had been asleep upstairs when he was woken by cries for help.
He said: ‘I summoned the lift but when the door opened it was covered in blood, all over the walls. I took the stairs and came down. When I got downstairs, the whole reception area was covered with blood.
‘I saw one of the receptionists lying behind the desk. He was gasping for air. He had been stabbed in the abdomen. One of the asylum seekers was assisting him. I ran out and saw another receptionist that I’ve known - he’s gasping for air, fighting for his life on the hotel steps.’
A harrowing photograph posted on social media shows the man collapsed in agony, with blood cascading down the stone steps outside the Park Inn.
John added: ‘I immediately called my
‘Blood all over walls’
mother and told her to stay in the room with the door locked and stay as calm as possible. A few minutes later, a police officer came out with his face covered in blood. He looked like he’d been in a struggle.’
A delivery driver who walked into the bloodbath said: ‘A guy had stabbed the receptionist and maintenance guy. I was trying to stem the blood of the maintenance guy when the armed police rushed in and went up to his room and shot him. It was absolute carnage, it was absolutely horrific.’
Another onlooker witnessed a man being stabbed outside the hotel by a knifeman who was ‘covered in blood’.
He said: ‘I thought he was punching him in the side of his stomach but then I saw blood and realised he had a knife. I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I saw a woman holding a man up with a hole in his chest. She was holding her hand over it to stop the bleeding.’
Decorator Terry Fitzpatrick, who was driving past the hotel with his teenage son, said: ‘We saw a guy lying outside the hotel, he was covered in blood.
‘A few seconds later the policeman was taken out. He was covered in blood, his eye was full of blood.
‘The police response was very swift, there was lots of shouting and armed response units were there within minutes and we were totally hemmed in.’
Police Scotland declared a major incident and set up a half-mile cordon in the city centre amid fears that it could be a coordinated terror attack.
But hours later they announced that the knifeman was acting alone.
Human rights campaigner Mohammad Asif said the assailant was an asylum seeker staying at the hotel.
He added: ‘A lot of them have come from countries where there is war and we know people in this hotel who are suffering from mental health issues
but the NHS is too swamped just now dealing with the coronavirus.’
Last night a Kurdish community spokesman described a febrile atmosphere at the hotel with residents developing ‘mental health’ problems during their stay.
Ako Zada, who works for Zagros, a Kurdish-Scottish community service helping asylum seekers during lockdown, said up to 100 asylum seekers have been accommodated in 91 rooms and tensions had risen about food and money.
He said they had carried out a demonstration two days ago over poor conditions but were attacked by a far right group.
‘Their financial support has been stopped so they are not getting any cash. People have been complaining about their mental health, that they are not getting enough food,’ he said. He added: ‘This is not a terrorist issue. It is a depression issue. People have been saying for months that they are not well, they are not happy in the hotel.’
In April Gary Christie, head of policy at the Scottish Refugee Council, raised concerns about how asylum seekers had been moved to hotels in Glasgow. ‘People tell us they’ve been moved into hotels at very short notice and without a proper explanation of why they’re being moved, how long for, or what will happen next,’ Mr Christie said, adding: ‘It’s confusing and frightening.’
The incident will reignite concerns about mental health provision for immigrants.
It follows the Reading attack last Sunday, when a Libyan migrant said to have mental health issues, and who was in temporary council housing, allegedly launched a random knife rampage. The Glasgow hotel is one of six in the city centre used as temporary accommodation.
Around the country, asylum seekers have been accommodated in hotels which would otherwise have lain empty during lockdown.
Latest figures for March this year showed there were 50,898 claimants being housed and financially supported by the Home Office. Of those, 44,244 were in ‘dispersed’ accommodation.
Yesterday First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sent her thoughts to those injured.
She added: ‘I also want to thank those police officers whose quick and decisive actions contained the incident as well as the work of the other emergency services.’
Boris Johnson tweeted: ‘My thoughts are with all the victims and their families.’