Following their Premier League victory, witnesses have described the “horrendous” incident where a car “rammed” into a crowd of people who were attending Liverpool FC’s victory parade.
In Water Street, Liverpool, just after 18:00 BST, Merseyside Police reported that a number of pedestrians had been struck by the vehicle. Twenty-seven were treated in hospitals, with two of them seriously.
According to one eyewitness, BBC reporter Matt Cole, the car “literally missed” him and his family.
He claimed that we had just moments before witnessed fireworks and the celebrations of the Liverpool bus passing us on the Strand.
He claimed that an ambulance had just sped through the “dense” crowd on Water Street when “there were screams ahead of us and suddenly this dark blue car just came through the crowd.”
“I managed to grab my daughter who was with me and let go of the way because it just wasn’t stopping.”
Literally speaking, it missed me and my family.
He claimed that the ambulance had no intention of stopping and that it acted like a “natural barrier” that “slowed the car down.” He continued, “The car appeared to be moving at more than 20]mph,” but he was unsure whether it was going at 30 mph.
He explained that the rear windshield had been “completely smashed in” and that it was being chased by a group of men who were trying to bang on the side of it and throw objects at it as it passed.
He saw police “running from all over, ambulances, police vans, more and more police vans… at one point, an entire squad of armed police cars stopped, and people jumped out with rifles and large medical packs on and began running towards the scene of the incident,” he said after moving to safety down a side street.
He claimed that he had an idea from the beginning that the driver simply wanted to “barge through crowds because they didn’t want to wait.”
When he saw the car pull up before it “just rammed into all the people at the side of us,” Solihull resident Harry Rashid, 48, said at the parade with his wife and two young daughters.
It was very quick, he claimed, according to the PA news agency. We initially only rehear people being knocked off the car’s bonnet, which is how we were initially greeted. I witnessed people unconscious lying on the ground.
“It was horrible. Such a horrible thing.
A car that was in front of an ambulance that was moving through the crowd was suddenly surrounded by off-duty BBC reporter Dan Ogunshakin, who was present for the parade in the city.
He claimed that he and his friend then noticed that “people were shaking and striking the car, and we wondered why this was suddenly occurring.”
He explained that the car then “it suddenly accelerated forwards” straight ahead of the crowd of people and reversed and pushed people away. “People scurried like bowling pins,” he said.
What used to be a state of celebration, joy, and happiness was suddenly transformed into fear, terror, and disbelief, he said, adding that it has since become “hell on Earth.”
Matthew O’Carroll, 28, from Runcorn claimed the car “came past a parked police van at a respectable speed” as he approached the top of Water Street.
“People managed to escape the path as he beeped as he passed, but as he passed, people became very irate and immediately began to pursue the car.
The car’s back window had already been broken.
“I believed it was just someone trying to get away from something and would slow down as it passed us,” he said.
When a car “speeds up” and hits pedestrians, another witness, Mike Maddra, was walking with a group of friends.
He claimed that the “car came toward us and runs toward the buildings,” and that it had mounted pavement and turned left.
He continued, “It looked deliberate, and I thought I saw two people being hit.”
Source: BBC
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