Commuters were heading to the subway and families’ homes were bustling with activity, preparing for school.
But the Tuesday morning routine of residents of the quiet northeast London neighborhood of Hainault was suddenly shattered by the sound of a speeding van crashing into the side of a house.
Moments later, deafening screams echoed through a suburban close as a 14-year-old boy in a sports suit was cut down in a vicious and unprovoked sword attack.
It was part of a horribly violent and bloody rampage that would leave the boy dead and four other people, including two police officers, seriously injured.
Exactly what happened (and why) is what police were still trying to piece together last night, unable to question the suspect while he received hospital treatment. But witnesses said that at around 6.50am a gray Ford Transit van with its bumper hanging off stopped in the middle of a cul-de-sac on Laing Close.
Police responded to the scene after receiving reports that a car had entered a property.
A man “wielding a machete” was seen “prowling the streets of east London”
Neighbors cautiously opened their front doors and looked out of their garden windows after a man emerged from the wrecked and smoking van, holding a mobile phone and asking curious onlookers where he was. Confusion quickly turned to terror as the man pulled a samurai-style sword from the back of his pants and began stalking the streets.
The victim, the schoolboy, son of two teachers, had no chance, according to witnesses. A few meters from the door of his house, he was shot dead when a neighbor shouted to warn him.
The teenager later died in hospital, but a witness said the attack was so vicious he believed he died “on the spot”.
As the victim lay mortally wounded on the corner of Laing Close, his killer dragged him from the road onto the pavement before beginning to prowl the front gardens, brandishing his gun as if searching for his next target.
“He was running, even after the police officers arrived, with his sword in his hand looking for victims,” James Fernando said.
Mobile phone footage showed a bearded man, wearing a yellow Quiksilver hoodie, crouched outside a house, watching the street as police cars and an ambulance approached.
One terrified resident said: “We were very scared and trying to hide and not show ourselves through the window, because he was standing right next to our house and could have seen us if he had looked up.”
“We were trying to hide but at the same time we recorded video of him attacking the police and the body on the ground, so, yeah, we were very scared and didn’t know what to do.”
The man was confronted by the first police officer on the scene, who held out his hand as he desperately radioed for backup, torn between trying to help the injured teen or chasing down his attacker.
Dramatic footage showed the moment a sword-wielding man was attacked with a Taser and arrested
Unfazed by the arrival of emergency services, the suspect shouted, “Does anyone here believe in God?” before turning and walking away from the approaching officer toward an alley in Franklyn Gardens.
As the brave officers chased the suspect, he attacked them with his sword, leaving two with injuries serious enough to require surgery. He also cut down two other members of the public, believed to be commuters heading to Hainault station. They had to be rushed to hospital with sword wounds.
The man was then captured on video as officers attempted to restrain him in what appeared to be a dead end: a section of garages hidden between Franklyn Gardens and Thurlow Gardens.
But when a police officer calmly approached and demanded to “come here, drop the sword”, the man quickly jumped over a fence and reappeared on top of neighboring garages before disappearing from sight into an adjacent backyard.
The officer’s tone quickly turned to panic, muttering “he’s going into people’s yards, man,” before shouting a warning to those living nearby: “Shut your doors!” Everyone close your doors!’
Still wielding his samurai-style sword, the man began jumping garden fences before finding his way onto a driveway in Thurlow Gardens, where, thanks to 1,200-volt Tasers, he was subdued and his rampage came to an end.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell reads a statement to the media near the scene in Hainault, north east London, after the death of a child.
The main emergency service response in Hainault on April 30. Pictured: New North Road.
‘Don’t move, don’t move,’ could be heard among the agents surrounding him. Nagesh Katipally, who lives on the street, said: “When the police arrived, they took the knife and wrapped it in a black sheet.
‘They put it over their head and then around the rest of their body, then they picked it up and carried it away. He was still alive and was showing resistance.’
The relief was palpable in the voice of the police officer who whispered into his service radio: “Safe subject.”
It was the same relief that soon spread through Hainault as the ordeal came to an end, but the questions and repercussions will continue.