Police shot a man at a London subway station on Friday, a day after the city was hit by a second wave of terror attacks in two weeks. One witness said the man was killed.
The circumstances of the shooting at Stockwell station in south London were not immediately clear, nor was the man’s condition.
British transport police said the Northern and Victoria Tube lines, which pass through Stockwell, were suspended because of shooting.
Passengers said that a man — described as South Asian — ran on to a train. They said police chased him, he tripped, and then they shot him.
”They pushed him on to the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He’s dead,” witness Mark Whitby told the BBC.
”He looked like a cornered fox. He looked petrified,” said Whitby.
Whitby said it didn’t look like the man was carrying anything, but said he was wearing a thick coat that looked padded.
”We were on the Tube and then we suddenly heard someone say, ‘Get out, get out,’ and then we heard gunshots,” said passenger Briony Coetsee.
Alistair Drummond, of the London Ambulance Service, said paramedics were called to the station at 10.10am local time.
”There were at least 20 of them [officers] and they were carrying big black guns,” said Chris Wells (28). ”The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting, ‘Get out, get out!”’
Sky News television reported that the man was a ”suspected suicide bomber” and that passengers had been evacuated from trains at the station.
Stockwell is one stop south of Oval station, one of the underground stations at the centre of apparent attempted suicide bombings on Thursday, two weeks after bomb attacks killed 56 people in the British capital.
Police also briefly threw a cordon around a mosque in east London on Friday, BBC television news reported.
The East London mosque, on Whitechapel Road, one of the biggest and most modern in the capital, was surrounded by police officers, some of whom were armed, a woman at the scene told the BBC by telephone.
Not long afterwards, the broadcaster said the police had stood down, as the focus of attention remained on the shooting in the subway station.
Jittery commuters
Earlier reports said London commuters showed signs of jitters a day after apparent would-be suicide bombings on the capital’s transit system suggested that the deadly July 7 attacks were not an isolated incident.
Whereas commuters were largely defiant after the first attacks that killed 56 people, they betrayed traces of nervousness after Thursday’s failed attacks on three underground subway trains and a double-decker bus.
”Yes, I’m afraid. I always take the Tube to go to work but now I feel more confident with the bus,” said Ehelena Osaki (24) said in the London financial district.
”The bus also is worrying me a bit, but you’ve got to get to work, no? I’m too young to die.”
Commuters faced disruption on the sections of London’s transport network, with two underground lines closed and three running a restricted service. Several stations on other lines were also shut down.
Up on street level, buses were running a full service, but diversions were in place near two of the four sites of Thursday’s incidents.
David Roberts (29), who rode a bicycle to work, said that two incidents in as many weeks were ”putting fears into people’s minds”.
”I wouldn’t go in the underground with my two children. I would fear too much for their safety.” — AFP, Sapa-AP