A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was killed and five injured in a knife attack in Russell Square, central London.<\/p>\n
Police were called on Wednesday to reports of a man injuring people, including a woman in her 60s who died.<\/p>\n
A 19-year-old man was arrested at 22:39 after a Taser was discharged by an officer. The Met said mental health was a “significant factor” in events.<\/p>\n
London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for the public to remain “calm and vigilant”.<\/p>\n
Two other women and three men received various injuries in the attack, Scotland Yard said.<\/p>\n
Two from the group remain in hospital while the other three people have since been discharged, the force added.<\/p>\n
After receiving treatment in hospital the arrested man is now in police custody.<\/p>\n
The Met’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations, Mark Rowley, said the force’s homicide command was leading the investigation into the attack, with support from the counter-terrorism unit.<\/p>\n
Jodie Parry, who witnessed the events unfold from her hotel window, said she saw a black man running down the street.<\/p>\n
“I could hear the policeman screaming ‘stop, don’t move, don’t go any further, just stay where you are’, and he turned round and continued running,” she said.<\/p>\n
She added that the man was carrying a knife and had blood on his hands.<\/p>\n
Paul \u00d3 Geibheannaigh, who lives near to the square, said he had seen the body of the woman “on the pavement” and the area was surrounded by a “heavy armed police presence”.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t seen a police presence like that in this area since 7\/7,” he said, referring to the terror attacks on the London transport system in July 2005.<\/p>\n
Zuhair Awartani was trying to return to a hotel where he was staying when he saw a “dark-skinned man” in his “late 20s” being arrested.<\/p>\n
He added: “We heard that there’s been a stabbing going on. The streets were blocked and no-one was allowed through.”<\/p>\n
Speaking about a motive for the attack, Mr Rowley said: “Of course at this stage we should keep an open mind regarding motive and consequently terrorism as a motivation remains… one line of inquiry for us to explore.”<\/p>\n
Mr Rowley added that Londoners would see an increased police presence on the streets, including armed officers, to “provide reassurance and safety”.<\/p>\n
BBC News home affairs correspondent June Kelly said police would be looking at the man’s background and his associates and whether he was known to them and health professionals.<\/p>\n
Mr Khan has cut short his holiday and will hold a briefing at City Hall at 15:30 BST.<\/p>\n
The mayor said his “heart goes out to the victims of the incident in Russell Square and their loved ones”.<\/p>\n
He said police were doing an “incredibly difficult job” and the safety of Londoners was his “number one priority”.<\/p>\n
The mayor added that police were “working extremely hard to investigate exactly what has happened and to keep the rest of us safe”.<\/p>\n
The Met said the attack was not linked with a separate stabbing in Wandsworth, south-west London, on Wednesday, in which one man was killed and two others injured.<\/p>\n
The Canadian High Commission said it was investigating reports a Canadian citizen had been injured in the attack.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n
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A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was killed and five injured in a knife attack in Russell Square, central London. Police were called on Wednesday to reports of a man injuring people, including a woman in her 60s who died. A 19-year-old man was arrested at 22:39 after a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":236641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/236641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}