UK police arrest man in stabbing of 2 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette (2024)

LONDON -- A man stabbed an 11-year-old girl and her mother in London's bustling theater district on Monday before being arrested, police said, adding that there was no indication that the attack was terrorism-related.

The attack occurred shortly before noon outside a tea shop in Leicester Square, a magnet for tourists with its shops and theaters.

Workers from nearby shops leapt to the assistance of the victims. Officers arrived within four minutes and arrested the attacker, police said. Police said they weren't seeking anyone else in connection with the attack.

A man working as security in the tea shop said he had witnessed the attack and had intervened after a young girl and a woman he believed to be her mother were injured. Police officers then whisked the witness away for further questioning.

In Leicester Square, an area in front of a shop called TWG Tea was cordoned off by blue and white police tape at 1:30 p.m., with a handful of police officers positioned at the scene. There were visible blood stains and a discarded baseball cap in the cordoned-off zone.

"I would like to pay tribute to the members of the public, including staff from local businesses, who bravely intervened in this incident," said Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Superintendent Christina Jessah, who is in charge of policing for Westminster, the central London borough containing Leicester Square. "They put themselves at risk and showed the best of London in doing so.

"An urgent investigation is now ongoing and detectives are working to establish the details around exactly what happened," Jessah said.

Police said in a later statement that they were continuing to investigate the suspect's motive.

The victims were taken to a major trauma center. The girl required treatment, but her life was not in jeopardy, police said. Her mother, 34, had less serious injuries.

The suspect is a 32-year-old man, and police said that at this stage, they don't believe he knew the victims.

A video later emerged on social media showing police officers detaining the man, who was wearing a T-shirt with "Abbey Road" written on the front.

Two hours after the attack, hundreds of tourists continued to mill about the square. Shoppers at the Lego and M&M's stores, which both frequently have long lines of people waiting to enter, craned their necks to see what was happening as a helicopter circled overhead.

The stabbing occurred during a recent rise in knife crime in Britain, which is on edge after days of violence as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists who used social media to spread misinformation after a deadly knife attack in Southport, near Liverpool, that led to the death of three young girls and injured eight other children and two adults.

In the days after the stabbings in Southport, disinformation about the identity of the attacker, including a false claim that he was a migrant in the country without legal permission, spread rapidly online, igniting the violent riots around Britain.

It was not clear if Monday's attack had any link to the unrest.

Police had braced for further riots over the weekend, but no widespread unrest occurred. Ministers remain on high alert, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said, adding that its work was not done in dealing with the fallout from the recent violence.

Information for this article was contributed by Megan Speia of The New York Times.