Around a million people had taken to the streets in the United Kingdom’s Liverpool to witness the victory parade of the city’s namesake football club on Monday, when a car rammed the crowd, injuring several people.
A 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area ploughed his minivan into the crowd as they were celebrating, reported AP, and was later arrested by the police. However, the cops believe that the man acted alone and the incident is not being treated as terrorism.
Around twenty people were treated on the scene, and 27 people were hospitalised, out of which four were children, reported Reuters, citing ambulance officials. Two of them, a child and an adult, are critically injured, the report added.
Also read: Liverpool victory parade car crash: Videos show vehicle ramming into crowd, suspect arrested
A video of the incident, which is in wide circulation on social media, shows a dark grey car running into the crowd toppling people in its way without slowing down. People are seen rushing out of the car’s way as they shout out of panic.
‘There were people on the ground’
An eyewitness of the incident, Chelsea, told BBC Radio that it was the screams of the people that alerted the crowd as the car did not show any signs of slowing down. “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 woman said.
Another witness, Harry Rashid, who was at the site with his wife and two daughters, told AP, “It was extremely fast…Initially, we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of a car.” After that, the crowd surrounded the minivan and began smashing its windows.
Also read: Police say driver who plowed into soccer fans in Liverpool acted alone
“But then he put his foot down again and just ploughed through the rest of them, he just kept going…It was horrible. And you could hear the bumps as he was going over the people…My daughter started screaming, and there were people on the ground,” Rashid added.
Peter Jones, who also witnessed the disturbing incident, said that he heard the car smashing into the crowd and later saw the people being treated on the side of the road.
“We heard a frantic beeping ahead, a car flew past me and my mate, people were chasing it and trying to stop it, windows smashed at the back…He then drove into people, police and medics ran past us, and people were being treated on the side of the road,” AP quoted Jones as saying.
