English town mourns victims of ‘horrific’ attack
The English town of Reading mourned Monday for three people stabbed to death as they sat in a park in what is being treated as a terror attack, gathering for a moment of silence as police questioned the alleged lone attacker.
More than 100 students lit candles and laid flowers in memory of history teacher James Furlong, who was named as one of the victims. At Holt School in nearby Wokingham, where he taught, a flag in the courtyard had been lowered to half-staff.
“He was so passionate and enthusiastic about history and about learning, and anything that was boring, anything you didn’t find interesting, he would make it interesting,” former student Molly Collins told the BBC.
Furlong’s friend, Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39, was named by his family in Philadelphia as the second victim. The identity of the third victim has not been released.
The stabbing rampage took place Saturday evening as groups of people relaxed in Forbury Gardens park in Reading, a town of 200,000 people 40 miles west of London. A 25-year-old suspect is in custody but officials say the motive is unclear.
Chief Constable John Campbell of Thames Valley Police said officers were called to reports of stabbings just before 7 p.m. and arrived to find a “horrific” scene. Unarmed officers detained the suspect within five minutes.
Police have not identified the suspect, but Britain’s national news agency, Press Association, and other media outlets named the alleged attacker as Khairi Saadallah, a Libyan asylum-seeker living in Reading.
Saadallah had been depressed and received psychological treatment because of the chaos in Libya after the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and then killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi, a family member in Tripoli told The Associated Press. Though he supported Gadhafi’s ouster, he became disillusioned with the chaotic aftermath.