Pedestrians injured after car hits barriers at UK parliament
A man was arrested after a car collided with security barriers outside London's parliament building and a number of pedestrians were injured, police said on Tuesday.
"The male driver of the car was detained by officers at the scene. A number of pedestrians have been injured. Officers remain at the scene. We will issue further info when we have it," London's police force said in a statement on Twitter.
London's Metropolitan Police say that they are treating the crash outside of Parliament as a terrorist incident.
Authorities said in a statement Tuesday that a man in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of terrorist actions.
British counter-terrorism police will lead the investigation into Tuesday’s car crash outside the UK parliament in London that injured “a number of pedestrians”, but Scotland Yard said it was still “keeping an open mind.”
“While we are keeping an open mind, the Met’s Counter-Terrorism Command is leading the investigation into the #Westminster incident,” the force said in a Twitter statement.
A “number of pedestrians” were injured when a car crashed into barriers outside Britain’s Houses of Parliament on Tuesday, with armed police swooping in to arrest the driver, the police force said.
“The male driver of the car was detained by officers at the scene,” the police statement said. “A number of pedestrians have been injured.”
None of the injuries are believed to be “life-threatening,” said police, who were yet to say if they suspected terrorism.
London Ambulance Service said they had treated two people at the scene for non-serious injuries and taken them to hospital.
Peter Rhodes, an assistant director of operations with the service, said: “We were called at 7.40am to reports of an incident on St Margaret Street, SW1. We sent a number of resources to the scene including three ambulance crews, responders in cars and an incident response officer.”
Armed police immediately surrounded the silver car after it crashed at 7.37am (06:37 GMT), pointing guns at the driver as he was removed from the vehicle, according to footage posted on Twitter.
Later images showed police holding the man, dressed in jeans and a black puffer jacket, in handcuffs as roads and Underground stations around parliament were sealed off.
Witness Ewalina Ochab told the Press Association that the incident “looked intentional.”
“I was walking on the other side. I heard some noise and someone screamed,” she said.
“I turned around and I saw a silver car driving very fast close to the railings, maybe even on the pavement.
“I think it looked intentional — the car drove at speed and toward the barriers.”
Westminster was the scene of a terror attack last year, when Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old British convert to Islam, drove a car at pedestrians on a bridge over the River Thames, before fatally stabbing a policeman on guard outside parliament.
The attack left five people dead and around 50 injured, and only ended when police shot Masood dead.
Britain endured a tumultuous period following the March 22 rampage, with four further terror attacks, including three in the capital at London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Parsons Green tube station.
