U.K. lawmaker hailed as hero amid attack
British MP rushed to help a wounded police officer during attack on Parliament
The MPs had been told to shelter inside.
Just feet from London’s Parliament building, a grisly scene was unfolding. An attacker had mowed into a crowd of people on Westminster Bridge. Then, knife in hand, he charged the building’s guards. The ensuing scuffle left at least one police officer gravely wounded. Shots had been fired; no one knew whether the danger had subsided.
That didn’t stop British MP Tobias Ellwood. While his colleagues gathered on the chamber floor, Ellwood headed outside to see whether he could help. Just steps from the exit, he found an unconscious police offi- cer, bleeding from multiple wounds. Ellwood’s military training kicked in. According to witnesses, he attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and applied pressure to the wounds to stem the blood flow. He didn’t stop until medical staff and an air ambulance landed in Parliament Square.
In pictures passed around social media, Ellwood can be seen talking to police officers, hands and face still bloody. He then returned to the country’s Foreign Office without speaking to reporters.
The officer did not survive. According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Ellwood was “well but shaken.”
Politicians took to social media to praise the MP.
Alan Duncan, a Tory minister, was in the House of Commons chamber when the officer’s death was announced. “In the Chamber there was a real sombre mood when they announced the policeman had died,” he told the Telegraph. “And equally there is massive admiration for Tobias Ellwood.”
Ellwood served as a captain in the Royal Green Jackets from 1991 to 1996. His military efforts took him to Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kuwait, Germany, Gibraltar and Bosnia. He worked on the London Stock Exchange before joining the government. As a Foreign Office minister, he focuses on the Middle East, Africa and counterterrorism. He was hospitalized a few years ago after he tried to stop a group of youths from playing football on the street. According to the BBC, he suffered a similar fate when he confronted a “gang” of youths urinating on someone’s lawn.
“He has previously said he feels more ordinary people should be prepared to tackle anti-social behaviour,” the BBC reported.
Ellwood has been touched by terrorism before. The MP’s brother died in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing.
Jon, a teacher, had travelled to the city for a conference. It took three days for officials to notify Ellwood and his family; he and his sister travelled to the city to bring back their brother’s body.
“We just wanted to bring my brother’s body back to Britain, as simple as that. But it’s not that simple,” he told the BBC in 2012. “You need death certificates in both languages, embalming certificates, sealing certificates. All these processes require time and people to participate. None of that happened. I had to do many of those things myself to the point where I ended up screwing the lid down on the coffin myself. That can’t be right.”
Ellwood was appalled by the embassy’s “horrific” response to the situation. And he was angry that MI5, the British security service, had not warned British citizens about visiting Bali, even though intelligence reports suggested that terrorists were plotting a nightclub attack.
He worried, too, that the country and the world had still not figured out how to stem the tide of Islamist extremism that killed his brother.
“Those terrorists that did the Bali bombing were trained in Afghanistan and that saw the invasion in 2001,” he told the outlet. “But 10 years later it is difficult to see what the mission is. It’s very confusing to see what we are trying to achieve (there) rather than that initial goal of defeating Al Qaeda. And it’s worrying that those objectives are not clear.”