READING (UK): An assailant went on a stabbing rampage in a park filled with people relaxing in the southern English city of Reading on Saturday (20th of June, 2020) leaving “a number of people” injured, according to police.
According to sources early indications suggested the incident was terror-related. The BBC and other media said three people could have died in the attack. The police would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the “appalling incident” and other leading politicians expressed sympathies for those hurt at the Forbury Gardens park in the historic centre of the city of 220,000.
“A number of people sustained injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment,” the Thames Valley Police said in a statement.
The police reported arresting “a man at the scene” and urged everyone to stay away. The Press Association said the arrested man was Libyan: “My thoughts are with all of those affected by the appalling incident in Reading and my thanks to the emergency services on the scene,” Johnson tweeted.
A Black Lives Matter protest took place at the park earlier but police said there was no indication the two incidents were connected.
“In terms of the protest and the people who attended from Black Lives Matter, we’re all safe,” the Reading BLM event organizer Nieema Hassan said on Facebook.”None of us are affected. We had all left by the time this happened.”
Witnesses reported seeing two air ambulances and several police cars rush to the park on Saturday evening.
One witness described a lone assailant walking through a park filled with people relaxing on the grass and stabbing them at random.
“The park was pretty full. A lot of people sat around drinking with friends,” Lawrence Wort told the Press Association.
“One lone person walked though, suddenly shouted some unintelligible words and went around a large group of around 10, trying to stab them.” Wort said he saw three people being stabbed “in the neck and under the arms”.
The assailant then lunged at another group and “got one person in the back of the neck”, Wort said. “Then when he realised everyone was starting to run, he ran out the park,” said the witness.
Officials said two people were being treated in the emergency department of Reading’s Berkshire Hospital. “An horrific, dreadful incident,” policing minister Kit Malthouse tweeted.
The main opposition Labour party’s leader Sir Keir Starmer called the incident “very concerning”.
Britain has witnessed two terror-related attacks in the past year.
A convicted jihadist who was out on parole after serving a sentence for terror offences was shot dead by police after stabbing five people – two fatally – by London Bridge in the heart of the British capital in November.
Police killed another assailant who injured three people in another London stabbing attack in February.
An overwhelming majority of Britain’s serious crimes are committed with knives and other stabbing weapons because of the country’s very strict gun ownership laws.
Johnson’s Conservative government promised to toughen up penalties for terror-related crimes after winning a sweeping mandate in a December general election.
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