British Man Detained After Car Hits Fans At Liverpool Parade | EUROtoday

LIVERPOOLEngland, May 26 (Reuters) – A automobile ploughed right into a crowd of Liverpool followers throughout a parade celebrating their facet’s Premier League soccer title on Monday, hospitalising 27 folks, with two critically injured, however police stated they didn’t consider the incident was terrorism-related.

Police stated they’d arrested a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area,” whom they believed to be the driving force of the automobile which struck a big group of supporters who have been celebrating within the metropolis in northwest England.

Twenty folks have been handled on the scene. Ambulance officers stated of the 27 taken to hospital, 4 have been youngsters. One youngster and one grownup have been in a critical situation. Four folks trapped underneath the automobile needed to be launched by fireplace fighters.

Videos on social media confirmed folks thrown into the air because the automobile rammed into spectators.

When the automobile stopped, offended followers converged on it and commenced smashing the home windows as cops intervened to forestall them from reaching the driving force.

“We believe this to be an isolated incident, and we are not currently looking for anyone else in relation to it. The incident is not being treated as terrorism,” non permanent Deputy Chief Constable Jenny Sims instructed reporters.

With most individuals off work for the Spring Bank Holiday, a whole bunch of hundreds of followers gathered to observe the Liverpool workforce and its employees journey by way of town centre on an open-top bus with the Premier League trophy.

The incident “cast a very dark shadow over what had been a joyous day,” Liverpool metropolis council chief Liam Robinson stated on social media.

In the aftermath, a Reuters photographer noticed emergency providers carrying victims on stretchers to ambulances and particles scattered on the street.

Police have been unusually fast to offer an outline of the person they arrested.

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in London’s Metropolitan Police, instructed the BBC this was an effort to chill social media hypothesis that the episode was an Islamist assault.

The similar police power oversaw the response to the homicide of three younger women within the close by city of Southport final yr, an incident which sparked days of rioting, sparked by hypothesis on-line over the id of the attacker.

An eyewitness to Monday’s incident who gave her identify as Chelsea instructed BBC Radio that folks packed onto the road have been solely alerted to the hazard by screams from the group. That enabled some to leap out of the way in which as the driving force confirmed no signal of slowing.

“With the commotion, that was the only reason we looked up, and thankfully, looked up and managed to jump out (of) the way in time,” the girl stated.

A Reuters witness stated that earlier than the incident, there was dysfunction within the metropolis centre the place the parade was because of cross, with overcrowding and spectators confused by an absence of signage about road closures or the place they need to go.

Liverpool final received the trophy throughout the COVID pandemic when celebrations weren’t permitted because of lockdowns.

Politicians in Britain and in Ireland, the place the membership is common, thanked emergency providers.

“My thoughts are with all those injured or affected,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated on X, calling the scenes “appalling,” and saying that he was being up to date concerning the occasions.

The workforce stated on X it was in direct contact with police. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident,” Liverpool FC stated.

(Reporting by Phil Noble, Sam Tobin and Muvija M; writing by Kate Holton; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Christian Radnedge, Cynthia Osterman and Leslie Adler)