Officer stabbed with sword af ter police swoop on brawl

A POLICE officer was stabbed yesterday after responding to an incident in a quiet city street.

He and a fellow officer arrived on the scene after concerned residents reported a disturbance in the Linthouse area of Govan in Glasgow, allegedly involving two men and a women.

Witnesses watching from windows of nearby three-storey tenements reported that when the officers arrived, they became involved in a ‘stand-off ’ with a man who appeared to be wielding some kind of sword.

After a few minutes, when the officers moved in to tackle the man in Hutton Drive, between Elder Park and the approach to the Clyde tunnel, one suffered a leg wound.

‘It was really scary,’ said one resident, who watched the drama unfold from a top-floor window. ‘The police officers appeared to be trying to defuse a situation in the street. There was a great deal of shouting. It was a really angry scene.’

The resident, who did not want to be named, added: ‘When the officers moved in to grapple with a man, one of them was apparently injured.’

One of the officers had apparently already radioed for support and colleagues from all over the city raced to the scene. The resident added: ‘At one point, there must have been 40 or 50 police officers in the street.’

Another neighbour said: ‘It seemed like every cop in the city had come to the aid of their fellow officers.’

Within minutes, paramedics in cars arrived to administer medical care while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. The neighbour said: ‘The officer seemed to collapse after his colleagues took control of the situation. I really did fear for him.’

But the resident said that once inside the ambulance ‘he seemed to be sitting up and he appeared to be able to talk to the paramedics and his fellow officers’.

The street was sealed off following the incident and a police photographer and a forensic team moved in to gather evidence.

Residents were asked to stay in their homes as detectives arrived to take statements.

Police Scotland later confirmed that one of their officers had suffered a leg injury.

A spokesman said: ‘At around 1.05pm today, while attending an incident in the Govan area, a Police Scotland officer was injured.

‘The officer has been taken to hospital for treatment. His injuries are not life-threatening. Inquiries are continuing to establish the exact circumstances.

‘Two men have been detained in connection with the disturbance in the area.’