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Incidents in London


HexMachina

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A number of incidents unfolding in the capital this evening: 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2017/jun/03/london-bridge-closed-after-serious-police-incident-live

:( 

Police are advising to avoid London Bridge, Borough Market and Vauxhall and issuing safety notices. The situation is being investigated as a potential act of terrorism.

I hope all our other London boarders are safe and remain so. My thoughts to those already affected by what has happened.

 

Eta: confirmed as terrorist incidents, save for the Vauxhall stabbing which was unconnected

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CNN is showing pictures of two guys lying on the ground with armed police standing over them. They are wearing some sort of padded jackets that an eyewitness said looked frightening.

A restaurant worker (in the Borough market) being interviewed by CNN said a woman came running down the street yelling that people were being stabbed. The restaurant workers told all the patrons to get up and run to the back of the restaurant and they went to pull down the shutters. Just then these three men came running down the street, wearing padded jackets and carrying machetes. they looked at the restaurant workers but did not try to get in the restaurant, moving on instead. Scared the hell out of the restaurant workers, who then got the shutters down and locked. 

They were locked up for about 90 minutes, hearing a lot of gun fire. Then the police came knocking on the shutters and told everyone to get out.

Sounds like they have captured at least two, perhaps the third is dead.

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Everything seems to have happened around an area a bunch of us spent quite a bit of time in during Worldcon. :(

The picture of the two men has them lying in front of an establishment that has a painted panel along the bottom two feet or so of the outside of the pub, perhaps, with the word Wheatsheaf painted on that panel. Someone might recognize the location from that description. It seems to be located on a corner.

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2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Everything seems to have happened around an area a bunch of us spent quite a bit of time in during Worldcon. :(

The picture of the two men has them lying in front of an establishment that has a painted panel along the bottom two feet or so of the outside of the pub, perhaps, with the word Wheatsheaf painted on that panel. Someone might recognize the location from that description. It seems to be located on a corner.

Yes it's the Wheatsheaf. I can recommend the Guardian live coverage I linked, got pretty clear images and eye witness interviews, plus statements from the Met. Apparently the attackers opened fire during the attack on Borough Market

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Wow.  The chief of the London Police just gave a press conference, and apparently from start to finish, from the time police showed up until the 3 killers were dead, took eight minutes. The uncertainty as to whether or not more people were involved stretched out the apparent incident time.

As of now, 6 people are confirmed dead, plus the three attackers, all killed by the police. 30 are being treated in hospital.

Experts on CNN were guessing the two in the picture shown on CNN that I mentioned in the post above were dead, based on the fact they were lying face up. If they were alive, they said, the police would have ordered them to lie face down. They were right.

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28 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Much love and solidarity to the people of London, I've seen reactions from all types of backgrounds about pulling together and the resilience of the city and I believe in that too. Don't let terror change the way you are, which is a beautiful multicultural city.

To second this point, I was really uplifted by all the positive stories that came out after the Manchester attack. Cabbies taking young concert goers home free of charge who were stranded after the event. Hotels opening up space for folks in similar circumstance, Restaurants and other local businesses donated food and water and the like to those who were stranded. This truly is a community that pulled together and took care of its' own in a time of need. 

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I watched the CNN coverage all night and didn't hear anything about the shouts from the attackers you mentioned, ME. No doubt I could have missed it, but they were very careful saying anything definite until the police announced the incidents were considered terrorism. I am merely suggesting waiting until the guys have actually been identified by the police, which I assume will happen in a few hours.

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2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I watched the CNN coverage all night and didn't hear anything about the shouts from the attackers you mentioned, ME. No doubt I could have missed it, but they were very careful saying anything definite until the police announced the incidents were considered terrorism. I am merely suggesting waiting until the guys have actually been identified by the police, which I assume will happen in a few hours.

Damn, the mention was in a British article I came across earlier. I can't recall the publication, but I will attempt to find it and then post it up. It is entirely possible that this is not a reputable publication and I am jumping the gun here. In either case, I must concede that this has not been widely reported as of yet, but I tend to think that even that kind of colors my point here. The pictures of the gentleman on the ground that many of these articles include show an arabic looking gentleman face up in what looks to be some sort of military style flak vest.

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Earlier in the week in the Politics thread I self-identified a tendency that I have to over defend myself when these sorts of exchanges occur. So I'm going to pull back for the nonce. I think I've clarified my position to a reasonable extent. If I don't respond past this point, please don't be offended or take it personally. It's just me editing myself. 

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1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

Absolutely, in fact i think it makes sense to not brand them, as clearly the branding is untrue in these cases as the act goes against the central tenets that they mistakenly think they are representing. 

Yup, in addition to this attack there have been multiple ones in Iraq. Murder during Ramadan shows that any claims to faith is merely a figleaf for what they actually are. They're reactionary extremists that decide to kill a bunch of people on their way out. 

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[mod] Can people please use this thread for expressing condolences, factual information about what happened, and so on, instead of navel-gazing about what you can and can't say on this board. If you have questions or views on that, contact a moderator privately. If you want to reflect on what this means more widely, I advise waiting until the facts are known and then starting a different thread. Thanks. [/mod]

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What a bunch of pathetic knobheads. How much of a shitty person do you have to be to decide to commit suicide by killing a bunch of innocent people?

Hopefully all the London boarders and their friends and family aren't affected by this.

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