[Closed] Shots fired outside Westminster

I'll be at Waterloo in 40 minutes so I'll update when I'm there.
Trains appear to be ok but I'd imagine greater security.

mrlebowski - Member
There is unlikely to be another attack today, or anytime soon
Actually, that would be a mistake..

I believe it was the Brussels Airport attack where a 2nd bomb was detonated shortly after the 1st. I seem to recall that the delayed timing was presumed to be a deliberate attempt to catch people rushing in to help.

Personally, I'd listen to official advice & work off that.

POSTED 2 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Unfortunately this is true, the Bas##rds often plant secondary devices, to catch the emergency services / first responders.

Thoughts with those affected by today's events, and hopefully indications that this could have been a LOT worse aren't premature.

I can't help but think (at risk of a toasty flaming), that notwithstanding the excellent work done behind the scenes by the security services in the UK, and also thank goodness for the UK stance on firearms, but thank <insert deity of choice> that UK terrorists seem mostly, well, a bit rubbish on the grand (and international) scale of things. Their attempts, whilst scary and potentially awful for the small number of people directly affected, do seem to be as amateurish as hell. Lets hope for everyone 'a sakes that they never get their acts together. It's like 'Four Lions' is a documentary rather than a satire... (no assumptions as to the motivations for today's events are implied).

Wookster - Member

Unfortunately this is true, the Bas##rds often plant secondary devices, to catch the emergency services / first responders.

Doesn't sound like that sort of thing, though.

franksinatra - Member

The sooner we are out of the EU and in control of our Boarders the better

It was the Ex-Presidents?

Unfortunately this is true, the Bas##rds often plant secondary devices, to catch the emergency services / first responders.

It would seem the Bomb Squad have been called..

franksinatra - Member
"Daily Mail journalist Quentin Letts whose office overlooks the scene"
Opportunity missed there then.

Really??? You're just as bad as ninfan, just can't help yourself.

Some pretty crass attitudes abound today.

Innocent folk injured and maimed, lives changed for the foreseeable.

Glad the Services got the assailant, have to say glad the assailant isn't around to cause any more trouble too. But speculation aside, was the assailant part of a wider network intent on disruption and terror on our terroir? only time will tell.

Sadly the only Daily Mail eyeball worth considering was Quintins viewpoint, the rest of the terror and fear mongering will appear in tomorrows arsewipe paper.

My daughter is in lockdown in a government building

These kind of attacks on the continent have tended to be isolated? individuals, as others have said, any bigger linked plot would probably have seen something else by now.

Tragic for those caught up in it, looks like the Police responded quickly.

The security services close down terrorist plots all the time. I think I read it was something like 500 last year.

Of course, this is done by monitoring mobile/internet chatter and keeping an eye on attempts to acquire bomb-making equipment and the like. Also information from our domestic spies and informants on the ground.

Unfortunately, random idiots waving knives and driving into people can't be predicted or prevented in advance...

Been watching it unfold for the last hour, just terrible. I really feel for everyone involved. I was stood enjoying a pint a few metres from the site where the Copper was stabbed a few months ago - it was the first time in my entire life I actually thought London was a nice place and not just some torturefest people go to for the sake of money. Yeah it was busy, but it wasn't an impersonal as I remembered, maybe it was because the sun was shining that day, but London seems if anything more social than Cardiff, we don't really speak to strangers here unless we have to and then it's kept at a minimum - but people were chatting to each other, chatting to me, it was nice.

There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the hows and whys in the weeks to come, but I find one of the scariest elements of this is that the perpetrators show little interest in getting away with it - during the troubles, the various armed factions seemed to try to avoid detection, which meant they needed bombs, lots of planning and often gave a coded warning - but these days you don't need hard to find things like explosives or spend weeks planning it - there's far less opportunity to be caught - a kitchen knife and a car, most people have got one or both, getting hold of them is the most normal thing in the world.

Anyway, London's anti-terror teams seem to be out in force now, judging by the TV anyway, I suspect London will be safe for now.

PS: whoever he is, hopefully he isn't dead, and will soon be in the company of an effective interrogation technique.

Innocent folk injured and maimed, lives changed for the foreseeable.

Just to put it in perspective, approx 151,600 people die every day, but we don't get our knickers in a twist about them. So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London?

Personally, I think the gallows style humour is perfectly fine...

PS: whoever he is, hopefully he isn't dead, and will soon be in the company of an effective interrogation technique.

If taken on US soil I would agree. Over here he would get a cup of tea & a biscuit.

Unfortunately this is true, the Bas##rds often plant secondary devices, to catch the emergency services / first responders.

Yes, I accept this. I am glad to have found over the last few years though, that our services are always on the watch. And although the odd attack may actually get through, I expect that anything more substantial that a small-time, one-off attack would be on the radar and something our men and women would be prepared for.

I know the system isn't perfect; I just have faith that, if the authorities haven't closed a place like Waterloo, it's because a place like Waterloo is pretty safe.

I know it's wrong but part of me really hopes he's some kind of far right supporter or a Northern Ireland dissident, just to piss on the chips of idiots like Ninfan.

jeez, been in meetings all afternoon and just found out.

My daughter and her year group were visiting the HofP this morning. Left about half one.......

Thoughts go out to all those involved.

Mr Woppit - Member

PS: whoever he is, hopefully he isn't dead, and will soon be in the company of an effective interrogation technique.

Hope so too, Lone Wolf Terrorist or part of a bigger Organisation, there will be lots to learn by the security services. I'm not sure of the rules though, I know their are some counter-terrorism laws that allow them to question them for longer than a criminal, but for how long? He may just "no comment" for a few days and go off to some high security remand centre. I don't believe those two who killed the Solder in London gave much up, but I suppose they wouldn't say if they did.

SaxonRider - Member
I'm going to stick inside for now and hope Waterloo isn't a target on the way home later.
Everyone will react differently, but really?

I tend to work on the balance of probability. There is unlikely to be another attack today, or anytime soon. If there is, it is unlikely to be so close to the one that just happened. If it were to be, it is unlikely to take place at the exact moment I happen to pass through. If it did, there is only a small chance that I would be one of the victims. If I was, well... I suppose after all that, it would just be plain dumb bad luck. But I certainly wouldn't stop going about my activities.

I'm stating i'm an expert on this but having attended various presentations by the MET in the last year they have recommended that you stay on high alert as terrorists do attempt to drive people to other locations for a multiple attack.

I don't think my comments are unreasonable.

footflaps - Member

Just to put it in perspective, approx 151,600 people die every day, but we don't get our knickers in a twist about them. So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London?

Personally, I think the gallows style humour is perfectly fine...

You would.

So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London

You probably think its ok then.

Have a nice day.

If taken on US soil I would agree. Over here he would get a cup of tea & a biscuit.

I wouldnt bet on it.

Just to put it in perspective, approx 151,600 people die every day, but we don't get our knickers in a twist about them. So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London?

Exactly. This is the perspective that is needed. 5 people would have died in car accidents today in the UK. Not one would even make the national news and nobody is going to stop driving tomorrow because of it.

Exactly. This is the perspective that is needed. 5 people would have died in car accidents today in the UK. Not one would even make the national news and nobody is going to stop driving tomorrow because of it.

But those accidents weren't intentional. Slightly different.

I work less than a mile away from Westminster Palace. There are emergency vehicles going past my office along with helicopters flying overhead.

Before we all launch into speculation, let us all try to focus on the fact that one person has sadly lost their life and others are seriously injured. My thoughts are with everyone anxious about loved ones in the vicinity, I hope that everyone in lockdown returns home safely.

Okay, the 2 people murdered each day that don't make the national news

Just to put it in perspective, approx 151,600 people die every day, but we don't get our knickers in a twist about them. So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London?

I get what you're saying here - I made a similar, and in hindsight insensitive, beer fuelled observation on the day of 9/11 when I was with a bunch of students in one of the poorest parts of Africa - but the difference is the shock value, that's why we all stop and go WTF, rather than shrug and say heh ho that's just life.

kerley - Member

Exactly. This is the perspective that is needed. 5 people would have died in car accidents today in the UK. Not one would even make the national news and nobody is going to stop driving tomorrow because of it.

Then, My God !! lets hope nothing happens to anyone You know or part of Your Family eh.

Back in Yer Box.

kerley - Member

Just to put it in perspective, approx 151,600 people die every day, but we don't get our knickers in a twist about them. So why on earth be so overly sensitive about a few complete strangers in London?

Exactly. This is the perspective that is needed. 5 people would have died in car accidents today in the UK. Not one would even make the national news.

We (people) work very hard year on year to reduce road deaths, and do, we work very hard to reduce untimely death wherever we can, we haven't lost that yet and I hope we never do.

Murder of any kind I'm glad to say is incredibly rare in the UK and terrorist killings rarer still, so by any stretch this is exceptional.

But I guess you know all that, you also know this a completely optional forum, you don't have to visit it, you didn't have to click the thread, I credit you with enough intelligence that you would have known the content to a decent level of certainty before you did, but yet here you are, getting you knickers in a twist about people getting their knickers in a twist about something you claim isn't that big a deal. Do you ever punch yourself in the face just to say it's not worth making a fuss over?

ninfan - Member
Shall we take bets on what he was shouting

'Britain first'?

At Waterloo - all running ok but lots of police.

SaxonRider - Member

I'm going to stick inside for now and hope Waterloo isn't a target on the way home later.

Everyone will react differently, but really?

I too am going to stick inside for now (I'm still at work) and also hope Waterloo isn't a target on my way home later. I'm not going to avoid it, because that's where my train leaves from. I've often thought that if you wanted to catch a large concentration of people, you'd cause some signal disruption stopping trains from a major terminal and attack the crowds backed up on the concourse.

I'm going to carry on hoping that doesn't happen, if that's alright with you?

These incidents are removed from accidents, crimes of passion or robberies and the like.

They are about attacks on the public in general on behalf of one moronic political or religious belief set or other.

Given the nature of the ambition, it only makes them more tragic. Such attacks are never going to achieve their object and so the victims have died or become life-changingly injured as part of a futile act of insanity on behalf of an attempt to attack and change the host culture/society. In this case, ours.

That is why the dead and injured of this sort of attack is more shocking than deaths of other kinds.

Pretty obvious really, but I suppose there will always be those who need it explained, I guess.

Doesn't good for police officer who was stabbed.

BBC reporting that police officer died following the attack

🙁

"BBC reporting that police officer died following the attack"

🙁

Terrible news. Just bravely doing his job, and probably had little thought, thanks and gratitude before today.

Damn. 🙁

To those talking about locking borders, internment, torture etc.

It didn't work in NI it just made a part of community more resentful. Just allowed for the Guilford 4 et al.

If you want more terrrorists then make their whole community out to be scum it always works!

If you say that most of the issue is coming from the middle east and is funded through petrol-chemical money are you willing to stop buying plastic and using petrol?

BBC reporting that police officer died following the attack

**** sake poor guy.

Newsthump sums it up.

[i][b]Don't give them the anger they want. Focus on the amazing job done by the public and emergency services. Don't look at the apparent carnage, look at the people rushing towards the unknown to help others. Make the story about the resilience of London and its citizens. They want your anger, they want your fury - and they want you to focus it on anyone different from you. Don't hand them an easy victory.[/b][/i]

[img] [/img]

look at the people rushing towards the unknown to help others

Indeed. And fair play to Tory MP Tobias Ellwood who appears to have tried to save the officer.

RIP to a fallen colleague. The thin blue line just got thinner.

"Don't give them the anger they want. Focus on the amazing job done by the public and emergency services. Don't look at the apparent carnage, look at the people rushing towards the unknown to help others. Make the story about the resilience of London and its citizens. They want your anger, they want your fury - and they want you to focus it on anyone different from you. Don't hand them an easy victory."

This. The Terrorists want hate and mistrust aimed at 'their people'. The response needs to be to do the opposite.

Four dead. Such sad news.

UK terrorists seem mostly, well, a bit rubbish

Great post from Drac/Newsthump.