What do you do when a terrorist attacks if you don’t have a gun or a knife because your government wouldn’t allow it?
Well, resourceful Londoners found a way after Usman Khan started his stabbing attack which ended at the London Bridge.
Khan had been convicted previously of being part of an Islamic terrorist group who plotted to blow up the London Stock Exchange, the American Embassy and the home of Boris Johnson who was then Mayor of London. He was actually wearing a electronic ankle monitor at the time of the present attack because of that prior conviction. He’d been released after seven years of a sixteen year sentence in December 2018 and was in the area to attend a prison rehabilitation conference at Fishmonger’s Hall, which is right next to the bridge.
According to the Daily Mail, he was attending a morning workshop on storytelling and creative writing conducted by the University of Cambridge’s criminology institute where he shared his prison experience. He came back to the afternoon session with two knives, threatened to blow up the hall. He was wearing a “suicide vest” that later turned out to be fake, but obviously people didn’t know it was fake at the time. He then began stabbing people. Two people, a man and a woman were killed in the attack. Several others were wounded.
At some point, he ran out onto the bridge, with private citizens chasing him, trying to stop him, believing he had a bomb. One man grabbed a fire extinguisher and was shooting it at him. Another ripped a five-foot narwhal tusk off the wall in Fishmonger’s Hall and was jabbing at him with it. A third man was also in the struggle and grabbed the terrorist, throwing him to the ground with his bare hands.
Two Londoners, one armed with a fire extinguisher and the other with a narwhal tusk, take on a knife-wielding terrorist on London Bridge. pic.twitter.com/QtJrgei5do
— Ben Stephens (@stephens_ben) November 29, 2019
Have just seen this.Highlights just how frenzied and dangerous this terrorist was. These three men must be up for the George Medal at the very least. Potentially many lives saved by a fire extinguisher, a whale tusk and valour. #LondonBridge
— Clive Allan (@clive_allan) November 30, 2019
At that point, then multiple other citizens jumped in to help hold him and try to wrest the knives away from him.
The police showed up with guns and told the citizens to get off him. Then they shot him dead.
Bystander takes down attacker, beats the shit out of him, another recovers the knife, police drag hero from attacker, police kill attacker at London Bridge pic.twitter.com/TkjXhE86m8
— Thomas Hill (@ThomasXXIV) November 29, 2019
https://twitter.com/Natty_Shep_PVS/status/1200434286509379584
Here’s what a narwhal looks like in the ocean, the “unicorn of the sea.”
The narwhal is one of just two species in the “white whales” family and is known for its long, unmistakable tusk.
But what do narwhals use that tusk for, anyway? pic.twitter.com/FxJ4icMhYL
— Oceana (@oceana) November 22, 2019
Needless to say, those tusks can be piercing as the terrorist found out. The man wielding the tusk is believed to be a chef from Poland named Lukasz who worked at Fishmonger’s Hall.
There’s likely to be a lot of questions about why this terrorist was let out and allowed to be on the streets.
But you have to give it up for the Londoners who stood in the breach, chased him down and stopped him, with whatever they could.
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