The death toll from a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class in Britain has risen to three after another child was killed on Tuesday.
Eight other children and two adults remain in hospital, some in a critical condition. The other two children who died were girls aged six and seven, Merseyside Police said.
Police are questioning a 17-year-old suspect after he was arrested shortly after an attack in Southport on Monday.
Taylor Swift wrote on her Instagram Story on Tuesday that she was “completely shocked” by the “horror of yesterday’s attack.”
“They were little kids taking dance lessons. I don’t know how to express my condolences to this family,” she wrote.
A screenshot from Taylor Swift’s Instagram story, in which she expresses condolences to the victims of a stabbing attack in Southport on Monday that left three children dead.
Instagram/Taylor Swift
Witnesses described the scene as a “horror movie”, showing bloody children running from the attack just before noon on Monday.
“They were on the road, running away from the orphanage,” said Bear Baratan, who runs a nearby store. “They were stabbed here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, pointing to the neck, back and chest.
According to the Telegraph, local businessman Jonathan Hayes heard screams in his office and was stabbed in the leg before running to a dance studio to protect his children.
“Our office is in the same building as the dance studio. He heard screams, went outside and saw the attacker, saw he had hurt the child and tried to pull the knife away from him before he was stabbed in the leg,” Haye’s wife Helen told the newspaper.
“He was very upset that he couldn’t help more. Physically he’s probably fine, but mentally I don’t know,” she added.
A person leaves flowers near the scene on Hart Street in Southport, England, on Tuesday. Three children were killed and nine others injured in a ‘savage’ knife attack during a Taylor Swift event at a dance school on Monday.
James Speakman/PA via AP
Immediately after the attack, police arrested a suspect on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and seized a knife. Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived in the town, about 5km from Southport, for several years. He has not yet been charged.
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Police said Monday’s attack was not being treated as terrorism-related and they were not looking for any other suspects.
Local residents laid flowers and stuffed animals on a police cordon along a brick-lined street in the seaside resort near Liverpool, nicknamed “sun-drenched Southport”, whose beach and pier attract holidaymakers from across northwest England.
People lay flowers near the scene on Hart Street in Southport where three children were killed and eight others injured in a ‘vicious’ stabbing attack during a Taylor Swift event at a dance school on Monday.
James Speakman/PA Images via Getty Images
It is the latest shocking terrorist attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has led to growing anxiety and calls for the government to do more to crack down on bladed weapons, which are by far the most commonly used weapon in murder in the UK.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrific and deeply shocking”.
King Charles III offered his “sympathy, prayers and deepest condolences” to those affected by “this absolutely appalling event”.
Prince William and his wife Catherine said on Monday: “As parents we cannot imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.”
Colin Perry, who owns a nearby auto body shop, told The Guardian the suspect arrived in a taxi.
“He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay the fare, so that’s when I confronted him,” Parry reportedly said. “He was pretty aggressive. I said, ‘What are you going to do about it?'”
Perry said most of the victims appeared to be young girls.
“Mums are coming in here now, screaming,” said Parry. “It’s like a scene from a horror movie. … It’s like they’re from America, not sunny Southport.”
Police work at the scene of a knife attack in Southport, England, on Monday, where a man was detained and a knife was seized after several people were injured.
James Speakman/PA via AP
The worst attack on children in Britain occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 kindergarten students and their teacher in a school gym in Dunblane, Scotland. Britain then banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and gun homicides are rare in the UK, with knives used in around 40% of homicides up to March 2023.
While mass stabbing incidents themselves are rare, several in recent years have attracted enormous attention, sparking fear and outrage.
In April, a knife-wielding man killed a 14-year-old boy walking to school in London and seriously injured four people, including two police officers.
In June 2022, in Nottingham, central England, a man with paranoid schizophrenia stabbed two university students to death as they walked home from an end-of-year party, then killed a 65-year-old man and stole his van, hitting three pedestrians.
In June 2020, a man whose application for asylum in Libya had been rejected stabbed three men to death and injured three others in Reading, west London.
— With files from Associated Press and Reuters
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
