FOUR people, including an armed police officer, died after a knifeman brought terror to the heart of London yesterday.
The attacker, armed with two large knives, mowed down pedestrians with his car on Westminster Bridge, then rushed at the gates in front of the Houses of Parliament, stabbing the policeman before being shot dead by other officers.
Eyewitnesses described scenes of terror when gunfire rang out as the man approached a second officer.
Scotland Yard’s top anti-terror officer, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, said the two other people who died were on the bridge when the terrorist struck. At least 20 other people, including school children, were injured.
Rowley told reporters outside New Scotland Yard, close to the scene of the attack: “This was a day we’ve planned for but hoped would never happen. Sadly it is now a reality.”
Paramedics fought to save the stabbed officer’s life and that of his attacker on the ground in the cobbled courtyard in front of Parliament, with Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood among those who rushed to help. The police officer was wheeled away on a stretcher with his face covered.
Ellwood, who lost his brother in the Bali bombing, could be seen pumping the officer’s chest, then standing above him, his hands and face smeared with blood.
Other armed officers, some in plain clothes and wearing balaclavas, swarmed around the yard just feet from where MPs had earlier attended Prime Minister’s Questions.
The knifeman drove a grey Hyundai i40 across Westminster Bridge before crashing it into railings then running through the gates of the Palace of Westminster. His attack left a trail of destruction as paramedics tended to victims on the bridge and at the gate.
One woman hit by the attacker’s car before he reached Parliament was confirmed dead by a doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital. Others on the bridge suffered “catastrophic injuries”. Details of the other fatality were not known as The National went to press.
Another woman who apparently fell into the Thames was rescued and given urgent medical treatment on a nearby pier. London Ambulance Service said paramedics had treated at least 10 patients on Westminster Bridge. A party of French school- children were among those targeted on the bridge, with three injured.
Downing Street said Prime Minister Theresa May, who was ushered away from Parliament after the attack, was last night chairing a meeting of the Government’s emergency Cobra committee. May was seen being shepherded into a silver Jaguar in the grounds of the Parliament as what sounded like gunfire rang out at around 2.45pm.
The attack took place in the middle of the day, at a time when Westminster was heaving with people.
Eyewitness Rick Longley saw a man lunge and stab a policeman after a car ploughed into pedestrians. Fighting back tears, he said: “We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out. They were just lying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben.
“A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman.
Others who saw what happened took to social media to post pictures, videos and accounts.
Radoslaw Sikorski posted a video to Twitter apparently showing people lying injured on the bridge.
The senior fellow at Harvard Centre for European Studies said he saw at least five people lying on the ground after being “mown down” by a car.
“I heard what I thought was just a collision and then I looked through the window of the taxi and saw someone down, obviously in great distress,” he said. “Then I saw a second person down, and I started filming, then I saw three more people down, one of them bleeding profusely.”
Parliament was suspended with MPs unable to leave the building after it was put into lockdown. It is due to reopen today.
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