UK stabbing attack that left 3 dead

The stabbing spree in the British park, which left three people dead, is now being investigated as a terrorist attack, police said.

Dean Haydon, U.K. Counter-Terrorism Police Coordinator, said on Sunday morning that counter-terror detectives were investigating the attack in the city of Reading, west of London. The police had said earlier that the motive was unclear.

Three people were killed and three others seriously injured when a 25-year-old man, who is in custody, went to Reading’s Forbury Gardens Park on Saturday night.

The man is believed to be Libyan, reports BBC and Sky News. He was reportedly serving time in prison in England for a minor offence.

Lawrence Wort, a personal trainer who witnessed the attack, said the park was crowded when suddenly a lone person “shut down some unintelligible words and walked around a large group of about 10, trying to stabb them.”

“He stabbed three of them in the neck and under the arms, and then he turned and began to run towards me, and we turned and began to run,” Wort said.

Heavy police presence remained on the scene Sunday as officers patrolled the cordoned roads leading to the park. Blue-and – white tents were erected near the site of the attack.

Overnight, heavily armed officers raided an apartment about a mile away from the park where the suspect was believed to be living, Sky News reported. After all the residents were evacuated safely, a loud bang was heard from inside the building.

The incident occurred hours after the Black Lives Matter demonstration in Forbury Gardens, but the police said there was no connection between the attack and the protest.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with security officials, police, and senior ministers on Sunday morning for an investigation briefing, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Marie Castro, who lives in nearby Slough and works at a coffee shop in Reading, told the BBC that the attack “doesn’t seem right to read.”

“It’s multicultural and very friendly,” she said. “I was really shocked to hear the news.”

Britain has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, including a suicide bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017 that killed 22 people and two deadly vehicles and knife attacks in London the same year.

Britain’s official threat of terrorism is at the “substantial” level, the middle level at the five-pronged level , which means that an attack is likely.