Carnage a harsh reminder for former Hub top cop
Boston’s former top cop, who spent four years policing in London, said the brazen terror attack outside Parliament stirred up haunting memories of deadly bombings linked to al-Qaeda in 2005 when he was working just blocks away from the scene of yesterday’s bloodshed.
“It’s horrific,” former BPD Commissioner Paul Evans told the Herald. “Those streets on a daily basis would be filled with tourists. I walked on that bridge often, it’s the bridge that separates the London Eye from Big Ben. ... It’s just tragic. These people are out to see the sites, they’re mowed down, by, it sounds like — a lone wolf.”
At least four people were dead and scores injured after authorities say a suspect driving an SUV plowed into a crowd of pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge before crashing into the gates of Parliament. There, the male suspect, whose name was not released last night, fatally stabbed a police officer before he was fatally shot.
Evans, who served as the city’s police commissioner for a decade beginning in 1993, took off to London in late November 2003 to serve as Director of Police Standards Unit. In the role, which he described as a “police performance trouble-shooter,” Evans was charged with advising police departments in the United Kingdom that were underperforming.
He then helped departments identify issues that would help them improve their performance, he said.
Evans said the attack reminded him of July 7, 2005, when more than 50 people were killed and 800 wounded in a series of coordinated suicide attacks targeting the city’s transport system.
“The public transportation had been shut down. ... I can still remember the thousands of people walking home that evening after the terrorist bombings,” he said. “What an impact that had. People trying to get home to their loved ones.”
Evans is the older brother of current police Commissioner William B. Evans.
The elder Evans lauded British intelligence, and noted when he left London in late 2007, he was told there were about 200 potential terrorist groups being monitored.
“They work in a very difficult environment — the threat levels are very high,” he said. “Today, once again, points out the difficult job they have. When you have people who act alone, they don’t leave trails and in the spur of the moment decide to do something to kill innocent people. ... The potential for the problem over there has been great.”