LONDON (AP) — Three girls killed in a knife attack at a dance class on the first day of summer vacation were mourned Tuesday as hundreds held a vigil in northwest England to support their families and 10 injured survivors.
A day earlier, the girls attended a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop when a person armed with a knife entered the studio and began a violent attack, police said.
“It is difficult to comprehend or put into words the horror of what has happened,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said as she briefed MPs. “What should have been a joyous start to the summer has turned into an unspeakable tragedy.”
Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, died from their injuries, police said.
“Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do, our princess,” Aguiar’s parents said in a statement released by police. “As we have told you before, you will always be our princess and no one would change that.”
King’s family said there are no words to describe their devastation at the loss of “our little girl Bebe.”
Eight children and two adults remained hospitalized after the attack in Southport. Both adults and five of the children were in critical condition.
An emotional crowd gathered outside the Atkinson Theatre and Museum in Southport in the early evening held a minute’s silence for the victims.
June Burns, the mayor of nearby Sefton, called for calm and respect and urged people to be kind to each other. She said she had been overcome with emotion when she visited the scene of the tragedy earlier.
“It’s unbelievable that we find ourselves laying flowers for girls who just wanted to dance,” she said.
Swift previously said on Instagram that she was “completely in shock” and still coming to terms with “the horror” of the event.
“They were just kids in a dance class,” she wrote. “I am completely at a loss as to how to convey my condolences to these families.”
People left flowers and stuffed animals in tribute at a police cordon on the street lined with brick houses in the seaside resort near Liverpool, where the beach and pier attract tourists from across northwest England. They also posted online messages of support for teacher Leanne Lucas, the event organizer who was among those attacked.
Witnesses described scenes “out of a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack shortly before noon on Monday. The 17-year-old suspect was arrested soon after on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived for years in a village about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from Southport. He has not yet been charged.
The massacre is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has sparked anxiety and prompted calls for the government to do more to crack down on knives, which are by far the most commonly used weapon in UK murders.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer was booed by some as he visited the crime scene and laid a wreath of pink and white flowers with a handwritten note that read: “Our hearts are broken, there are no words for such a profound loss. The nation’s thoughts are with you.”
“How many more children?” one person shouted at Starmer as he was getting into the car. “Our children are dead and you’re already leaving?”
Starmer told reporters earlier he was determined to control high levels of knife crime but said it was not a day for politics.
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood in the chaos outside Hart Space, a community center that offers everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.
Joel Verite, a window cleaner who was in a van on his lunch break, said his colleague braked sharply and reversed to where a woman was hanging from the side of a car covered in blood.
“She just screamed at me: ‘He’s killing children over there. He’s killing children over there,’” Verite told Sky News.
The woman, who was on the phone with police, directed him to where the violence was happening and then passed out. Verite said he ran in the direction she had pointed.
A woman honking her horn caught his attention and he found her with five or six bloodied children inside. The woman said she was trying to get the children to safety.
“It was like a scene you would see in a disaster movie,” he said. “I can’t explain to you how horrific it was.”
He carried an unconscious girl out into the street and his co-worker tended to her as he ran to the dance studio, where he was startled when he locked eyes with a man in a hoodie holding a knife at the top of the stairs.
“All I saw was a knife and I thought, ‘There’s more people in there,’ and I just wanted to hurt him so bad,” Verite said. “But I was scared for myself and I wanted to help people. So I went out and I was screaming because I knew where he was.”
He said the first officer to arrive waited for backup and then went upstairs and attacked the suspect.
The dance workshop was a summer holiday activity for children aged six to 11. Richard Townes, a children’s entertainer from Southport, said parents in text message groups were wary of sending their children to summer programmes.
“I have a 5-year-old daughter who could easily have been in class,” Townes said. “I feel helpless and like I can’t do anything.”
A group of Swift fans in the UK calling themselves “Swifties for Southport” have launched an online fundraiser to help the families of the victims. They have raised more than £216,000 ($277,000) in just over 24 hours.
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when Thomas Hamilton, 43, shot 16 kindergarten children and their teacher dead in a school gym in Dunblane, Scotland. The UK subsequently banned private ownership of almost all firearms.
Mass shootings and gun murders are exceptionally rare in Britain, where knives were used in around 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.
Mass stabbings are also very rare, according to Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence.
“Most knife attacks are individual and personal – whether domestic violence or gang-related – so this tragedy is very unusual and consequently attracts a lot of media attention,” Overton said. “That offers no comfort to the grieving families, of course.”
Several attacks in recent years have sparked outrage and received tremendous attention:
— In April, in London, a man with a sword killed a 14-year-old boy who was walking to school and seriously injured four other people, including two police officers.
— In Nottingham, central England, in June 2022, a paranoid schizophrenic man fatally stabbed two university students who were walking home after celebrating the end of the school year, then killed a 65-year-old man, stole his van and used it to run over three pedestrians.
— In Reading, west London, in June 2020, a Libyan asylum seeker whose application was rejected fatally stabbed three men and injured three others.
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