“We’re starting to get a sense of what happened on Tuesday. » The day after a stabbing attack which left one dead and four injured in east London, police detailed the itinerary of the attacker, a 36-year-old man. The investigation is “complex given the number of crime scenes, forensic evidence, hours of CCTV footage and witnesses we need to speak to,” Chief Inspector explained in a statement. Larry Smith, in charge of the investigation.
Shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday, witnesses contacted police after seeing a van crash into a fence in front of a house near the Hainault metro station. “A 33-year-old man was hit (by the van) then he was attacked by the suspect and was injured in the neck,” detailed the head of the investigation. A 35-year-old man later suffered “lacerations to his arm” after being attacked at a nearby property. The suspect then attacked a 14-year-old boy, Daniel Anjorin, who died from his injuries shortly after being transported to hospital.
“12 minutes after the first call”
The police, who arrived on the scene “12 minutes after the first call”, first attempted to neutralize the suspect with an incapacitating defense bomb and their electric pulse gun, but without success. Two of them were seriously injured by the suspect, who “fled again before being surrounded by other officers” in a nearby street. He was finally arrested “22 minutes” after the first call to the police.
Injured, he was first taken to hospital and “is now in police custody,” according to the police report. Investigators did not reveal his identity, but specified that according to initial checks, he was not known to the police for previous incidents. At this stage they have ruled out a terrorist motive.
This attack came against a backdrop of an increase in stabbing attacks in the United Kingdom and two days before local elections in the British capital, where the conservative opposition is very critical of the security record of Labor Mayor Sadiq Khan.