(LONDON) — A 9-year-old girl wounded in a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class in northwestern England died Tuesday, bringing the death toll to three, as police questioned a 17-year-old suspect arrested minutes after the rampage.
The girl was identified as Alice Aguiar by Portuguese Secretary of State for Communities Jose Cesario. He said her family, who were originally from the Madeira region, were in a state of shock.
Merseyside Police said the other fatalities were girls aged 6 and 7.
Eight children and two adults remain hospitalized after the attack in Southport. Both adults and five of the children are in critical condition.
Swift said she was “completely in shock” and still taking in “the horror” of the event.
“These were just little kids at a dance class,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Local 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 — nicknamed “sunny Southport” — whose beach and pier attract vacationers from across northwest England.
Witnesses described scenes “from a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack just before noon on Monday. The 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.
Police said detectives are not treating Monday’s attack as terror-related and they are not looking for any other suspects.
“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.
People posted online tributes and messages of support for teacher Leanne Lucas, the organizer of the event, who was one of those attacked.
A group of Swift’s U.K. fans calling themselves “Swifties for Southport” launched an online fundraiser to help families of the victims. It raised over 100,000 pounds ($129,000) within 24 hours.
The rampage is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons, which are by far the most commonly used instruments in U.K. homicides.
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the Hart Space, a community center that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.
The Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop was a summer vacation activity for children aged about 6 to 11.
“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, indicating the neck, back and chest.
Richard Townes, a children’s entertainer from Southport, said parents in texting groups are terrified now to send their children to summer programs
“I have a 5-year-old daughter who could have just as easily been at the class,” Townes said. “I feel helpless and like I can’t do anything.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking.” King Charles III sent his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” to those affected by the “utterly horrific incident.”
Prince William and his wife Catherine said that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.”
Colin Parry, who owns a nearby auto body shop, told The Guardian that the suspect arrived by taxi.
“He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay for the taxi, so I confronted him at that point,” Parry was quoted as saying. “He was quite aggressive, he said, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’”
Parry said most of the victims appeared to be young girls.
“The mothers are coming here now and screaming,” Parry said. “It is like a scene from a horror movie. … It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergartners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.
Although mass stabbings are also rare, several in recent years have generated fear and outrage and received a tremendous amount of attention:
— In London in April, a man with a sword killed a 14-year-old boy walking to school and seriously injured four other people, including two police officers.
— In Nottingham in central England in June 2022, a paranoid schizophrenic man fatally stabbed two college students walking home from celebrating the end of the school year and then killed a 65-year-old man, stole his van and used it to hit three pedestrians.
— In Reading, west of London, in June 2020, a failed Libyan asylum seeker fatally stabbed three men and wounded three others.
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