Schoolboy killed in daylight sword rampage
Man roamed London estate with samurai weapon leaving one dead and police injured
AN ATTACKER wielding a samurai sword killed a 14-year-old schoolboy in a daylight rampage in north-east London, with Rishi Sunak saying: “Such violence has no place on our streets.”
The 22-minute attack, which happened in Hainault and was captured on social media in almost real time by witnesses, began just before 7am yesterday. The teenager who died was thought to have been on his way to school and is believed to be from a Nigerian family. Four other people, including two police officers, were wounded.
Footage posted on social media appeared to show officers confronting the attacker as a body lay on the street nearby. Police later pleaded with the public not to share graphic images and videos.
A 36-year-old man who was Tasered close to the scene was arrested on suspicion of murder, but was taken to hospital and has yet to be questioned.
The suspect had earlier rammed a van into a house before he began prowling the streets and attacking victims at random. Police said the attack was not believed to have been targeted or terror-related.
Mr Sunak paid tribute to the courage of the police officers who tackled the assailant, but stressed that such an incident should never have happened.
He said: “This is a shocking incident. My thoughts are with those affected and their families. I would like to thank the emergency services for their ongoing response and pay tribute to the bravery shown by police on the scene. Such violence has no place on our streets.”
The attack came as new figures showed that knife crime in London has hit a record high, overtaking the previous peak in 2019, when there was also a surge in murders.
It happened shortly before tomorrow’s mayoral elections, at which violence in London is expected to be a key issue as Sadiq Khan’s record comes under scrutiny. The capital’s mayor was challenged over the presence of gangs armed with machetes in the capital by Susan Hall, his Conservative rival, last week but brushed off the concerns, telling her that she should “stop watching The Wire. We’re not living in Baltimore, USA, in the noughties”.
Yesterday, Mr Khan said he was “absolutely devastated” by the events and praised those who had gone to the aid of the wounded. He said: “The police officers and emergency services showed the best of our city – running towards danger to protect others – and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.”
Following the incident, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said the King’s “thoughts and prayers are with all those affected, in particular the family of the young victim who has lost his life”.
After crashing the grey Ford Transit van in Thurlow Gardens shortly before 7am, the assailant, who was wearing a yellow hoodie, went on his 22-minute rampage. After being pursued into an alleyway, he climbed on to some garages before making his way through people’s gardens as residents were urged to lock themselves in their homes. He was eventually cornered on a driveway, with doorbell camera footage capturing the moment he was Tasered, disarmed by a female officer and arrested.
Speaking at a press conference near the scene, Ch Supt Stuart Bell confirmed that a murder investigation had been launched.
Ch Supt Bell said the teenager’s family was being supported by specially trained officers.
He refused to be drawn on claims by locals that the suspect had previously been arrested by police.
But addressing reporters several hours later, Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe said: “We know there is speculation about his background, including police contact with him. Despite urgent checks of our system today we have found no trace of a prior incident involving him so far, but we will of course continue to make those enquiries.”
It is thought the injured police officers, who required surgery, were unarmed and had tackled the man despite not being equipped with Tasers. Rick Prior, the head of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “This horrific incident is a sad reminder of the incredible bravery our officers display and the dangers they face to keep the public in London safe day in and day out.”
The federation, which represents rank and file officers in the capital, has called for all officers who want to carry a Taser to be equipped with one.
SHORTLY before 7am, residents living in a quiet north-east London neighbourhood were awoken by the sounds of a van careering into a house.
Moments later a series of piercing screams shattered what should have been a peaceful morning in Hainault.
For a terrifying 22 minutes, a lone man wielding a sword went on a violent and bloody rampage which culminated in the death of a 14-year-old schoolboy – with his actions captured by witnesses and uploaded to social media almost in real time. The teenager, possibly attacked as he walked to school, was among five people – including two police officers – who suffered serious injuries in what is believed to have been a series of random and apparently motiveless attacks.
The four survivors were being treated in hospital yesterday.
Residential streets near Hainault Tube went into lockdown as petrified homeowners bolted their doors and hid after spotting a bearded man, who was white and wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt and shouting about God, prowling the streets.
He was pursued relentlessly by police – some on foot and armed only with Tasers – as he roamed from door to door, clambering onto garage roofs, vaulting fences and running through back gardens. He was eventually Tasered and arrested on suspicion of murder. No one else was being sought in connection with the murder and attacks, which police said were not terror-related. While the motive for the attack remains a mystery, much of the police hunt and the man’s erratic behaviour were captured on mobile phones and posted on social media, often by residents leaning out of upstairs windows or by those caught up in the chaos as they walked to work.
The “serious incident” began at about 6.53am when police received a flurry of 999 calls from Thurlow Gardens after a grey Ford Transit van rammed into the side of a house.
A witness told The Telegraph a passerby went to check on the motorist but was instead set upon by the driver.
The local man, called Brandon, said: “A van had driven straight into the side of the house opposite me. I heard a load of screaming and it turned out a man who had gone to see if the motorist was okay got stabbed in the neck by the driver. The driver then got back in his car and reversed out the side of the house to drive up the back road opposite where it all started kicking off again. I could hear more people running and screaming.”
The London Ambulance Service was alerted at 6.54am to reports of stabbings at Hainault Tube station. By then, police were on scene challenging the man after he had abandoned his van in nearby Laing Close, where he is understood to have attacked the boy believed to have been dressed in school uniform.
One witness said: “I heard shouting, I heard shrieking – I thought ‘who would be shrieking at this time in the morning?’ The shrieking sounded like the police – you know when they are ordering someone to stop or to get on their knees or something.
“It was like ‘stop where you are, put that down, put that down’ – that kind of thing. I looked out the back window … I saw a bloke dressed in yellow jumping over some fences … then he went down an alley like he was going back onto the street again. I saw a policeman and policewoman – normal coppers with the short-sleeved shirts – who chased after him and they were shouting for him to put it [the sword] down.”
One Laing Close resident, who did not want to be named, said she saw a man wielding the sword and standing just outside her house alongside what appeared to be a body lying on the ground. “He was wielding his sword trying to attack the police but then they sprayed him and he ran away,” she said.
“He was shouting at the police ‘do you believe in God?’ We were very scared and trying to hide and not show ourselves through the window, because he was standing right next to our house and he could have seen us if he looked up. We were trying to hide but also at the same time taking video of him attacking the police, and of the body on the floor, so, yeah, we were very scared and we didn’t know what to do.”
In another video clip, filmed by a resident, a police car arrives before the man verbally confronts the officer and shouts “is there anybody here who believes in God?” while standing next to the motionless body on the ground.
Ela Zaniewska, 46, an insurance worker who lives next to Laing Close, said:“i got up and had a quick look at what’s going on. There were blue lights everywhere. At some point I heard a woman screaming and crying. I just heard screams. It sounded like a desperate scream. I couldn’t see much but I could hear a lot of noises.”
Another witness said there were a series of tense stand-offs between police and the suspect in an alleyway leading to Franklyn Gardens. The man, who asked not to be named, said: “I also heard the words ‘he’s got a massive sword’. Then he disappeared down this
alley and out of sight. They [the police] went into the alley and there seemed to be some sort of a stand-off there where I heard this huge commotion, then I heard a scream.
“From that commotion at least one person was knifed – I think it might have been a woman because I heard a woman scream and then some sort of sobbing sounds. I then heard a voice say something like ‘she’s been stabbed in the face’ or ‘we need assistance’ – you know, calling for medical back-up.”
It is understood the man had run to Franklyn Gardens, before a police patrol car was filmed approaching him, while another officer was on foot.
A video posted online then showed the man emerging from the alley having clambered on top of a row of garages. Three police officers cautiously followed him, warning one another: “Easy, easy.” In another clip, someone is heard shouting: “He’s going in people’s gardens, man. Everyone lock your doors.”
One officer is heard warning that he or she believed they heard him “going out of a side gate”.
The man then ran back to Thurlow Garden, just yards from where he had rammed the house with his van.
Witnesses said he was eventually Tasered at 7.15am on Laing Close. As the man collapsed to the ground, about eight officers “jumped on him”, one eye witness said. The man was handcuffed and bundled into the back of a van. An officer was seen removing the sword.
A photograph taken by a security doorbell captures the man swinging the sword at the very moment he was being Tasered. A witness told Sky News: “There was a massive response from the police – there were lots of them, at least a dozen. They all ran up to the driveway shouting and screaming at him to put a big samurai sword down. He was shouting back at them. They Tasered him.
Then seven or eight of them piled on top of him. They were there for about 15 minutes before picking him up off the floor and putting him in the back of the [police] van.”
A neighbour on that street, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said: “I heard police sirens and then the car stopped here for three seconds, which was a bit odd. I opened the door and I could see armed police officers.
“I saw a gentleman, a white guy, running, being chased by the police. He went into that driveway and he was being Tasered, being told to stop, then he jumped into that other neighbour’s driveway. He went to the floor with all the armed police officers around and he was subdued there for half an hour. I think he mentioned something about God and attempted murder. He was resisting [arrest].” Nagesh Katipally, who also lives in Thurlow Gardens, said: “When the police came they took the knife and they wrapped him up in a black sheet. There was no blood on him. He was showing resistance, and four officers took him into the van. It was like a big cloth he was wrapped in. They put it over his head and then around the rest of his body, then they lifted it up and carried him away. Once he was contained in the sheet they pushed him into the van. I saw a police officer carrying the machete afterwards.”
The attacks carried out in daylight and resulting in the death of a schoolboy sent shockwaves through the country. The King asked to be kept fully informed. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “His thoughts and prayers are with all those affected – in particular, the family of the young victim who has lost his life – and he salutes the courage of the emergency services who helped contain the situation.” Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, paid tribute to the bravery of emergency services who responded to the 999 calls. “I’d like to give my thanks to the emergency teams that are responding and to pay tribute to their bravery,” he said.
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said he was “absolutely devastated” by the attack and thanked the emergency services for “running towards danger”.
The officers who challenged the attacker were praised by Jas Athwal, the leader of Redbridge council, for being “heroic” for putting themselves in “harm’s way”. Rick Prior, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the thoughts of London’s police officers were with the family of the 14-year-old boy and all of those injured, including the two officers. “This horrific incident is a sad reminder of the incredible bravery our officers display and the dangers they face to keep the public in London safe, day in and day out,” he said. “It’s often forgotten by people who attack our profession and the difficult and dynamic decisions which officers are confronted with on an hourly basis, that we work with heroes whose courage is incredible. We shall be supporting our injured colleagues, the officers they work with and their families as best we can at this very difficult time.”
Rumours were circulating locally that police had gone to see the man on Monday, fewer than 24 hours before the attacks. However, Louisa Rolfe, assistant commissioner, told a press conference near the scene there was nothing to suggest there had been any contact with the man prior to the attacks.
Wes Streeting, the local MP for Ilford North, said: “I can’t imagine what that poor boy’s family are going through and they have my deepest, heartfelt condolences. My prayers are also with the other victims of this horrific attack and their loved ones. I am grateful to the police for their visible and reassuring presence in Hainault today.”