One child was killed and several other people were hospitalized after a man with a sword went on a stabbing spree in northeast London early Tuesday morning, the authorities said.
The child, a 14-year-old boy, died after being taken to a hospital, Stuart Bell, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police, said in a news conference on Tuesday afternoon. (The police initially said the child was 13 before later correcting his age.)
The stabbing spree left four others injured, Mr. Bell said, including two police officers. All four remain hospitalized, he said.
Just before 7 a.m. the police received reports of a vehicle being driven into a house and multiple people being stabbed in Hainault, a neighborhood in northeast London, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police.
Video of the incident circulating on social media showed a man wearing a yellow sweatshirt wielding a large sword in the middle of several houses in the neighborhood.
The suspect, who has not been named, went on to attack more members of the public and two police officers, the police said. A 36-year-old man was arrested at the scene.
Ade Adelekan, the deputy assistant commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, said there was no ongoing threat to the community and that the incident did not appear to be terror related.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said in a statement that he was devastated over the news and that additional patrols would be added to the area.
“The police officers and emergency services showed the best of our city — running toward danger to protect others and I thank them from the bottom of my heart,” he said.
James Cleverly, Britain’s home secretary, said on social media that he was being regularly updated about the incident. He urged people not to speculate or share footage of the episode online.
Knife crime has been on the rise across England and Wales for about a decade, according to the Office for National Statistics. Knife crime recorded by the police in the year ending September 2023 increased by 5 percent, to nearly 49,000 offenses, compared with the previous year, the data showed, although it was lower than in 2020.
