Hainault sword attack leaves 13-year-old dead, multiple injured

Authorities in London said Tuesday that a 13-year-old boy has been killed with at least five people including two police officials injured by an attack by a sword-wielding man in the eastern part of the city, reported BBC.

Authorities noted that the 36-year-old male suspect has been detained and the five people were taken to the hospital.

According to the report, police received a call of a vehicle crashing into a residence at Hainault.

Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell said: "It is with great sadness that I confirm that one of those injured in the incident, a 13-year-old boy, has died from their injuries."

"He was taken to hospital after being stabbed and sadly died a short while after," Bell said.

Guardian revealing statistics of criminal incidents noted that knife offences in the UK’s capital city rose yearly.

The Metropolitan police recorded an estimate of 14,577 incidents in the 12 months to December 2023, Home Office data quoted by the outlet suggested.

The report added: "This is up 20% from 12,119 in the previous 12 months, but is slightly below the 14,680 in the year to March 2020. Of the 49,489 knife crime offences recorded in England and Wales in 2023, 29% were by the Metropolitan police, a higher proportion than any other force."

A witness was quoted by the Guardian as saying that he heard shrieking before seeing a yellow-dressed male jumping over some fences at about 7am.

He said: "I heard shouting, I heard shrieking — I thought 'who would be shrieking at this time in the morning?' The shrieking sounded like the police — you know when they are ordering someone to stop or to get on their knees or something — it was like that. It was like ‘stop where you are, put that down, put that down’ — that kind of thing."

"I looked out the back window because the noise was coming from back there, I saw a bloke dressed in yellow jumping over some fences … then he went down an alley like he was going back onto the street again."

“I saw a policeman and policewoman — normal coppers with the short-sleeved shirts — who chased after him and they were shouting for him to put it down," the witness said.