British emergency services raced to London’s Natural History Museum after a car struck pedestrians outside the building, on Saturday, 7 October. Police said a number of people were injured and one person was detained at the scene.
The crash happened at 2.20 pm on a day when the central London museum is usually teeming with pedestrians, including international tourists.
Photographs showed a dented silver car and a man being pinned to the ground outside the museum.
Witness Katie Craine said she was coming out of the museum when she saw a man in handcuffs being pinned down by the police near a damaged car. “He looked really proud of himself,” she said. “He was laughing.”
The London Ambulance Service was tending to the injured. There was no immediate statement on the number or severity of the injuries.
Shopkeepers in the immediate area were told to evacuate, and police established a large security cordon around the area minutes after the incident, closing some roads. Police helicopters circled the scene overhead.
The Natural History Museum tweeted that there had been a “serious incident” outside the museum, which is located near the world famous Victoria and Albert Museum and other attractions.
Downing Street said British Prime Minister Theresa May was being briefed on the incident.
London’s official terrorist threat level has been set at “severe,” indicating an attack is highly likely. There have been a series of terror attacks in London and Manchester this year, including vehicle attacks on pedestrians at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge.
London police said they were keeping an open mind about whether the incident was terrorism-related, contradicting an earlier comment that they were not treating the incident as terrorism-related.
A spokeswoman for the London force said counter-terrorism officers were assessing the incident but had not yet reached a conclusion as to the circumstances. Earlier, a spokesman told Reuters it was not being treated as a terrorism-related incident at this stage.
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