UK police detail deadly sword attack as victim named

UK police named a 14-year-old boy killed in a sword attack in London this week as Daniel Anjorin, as officers released more details about how the violent rampage unfolded.

The teenager died on Tuesday morning as he walked to school in Hainault, in the east of Britain’s capital, when he was attacked by a man wielding what appeared to be a Samurai-type sword.

Police tasered and arrested the suspect, a 36-year-old man who remains in custody on suspicion of murder. He has not been named and was not previously known to police.

The independent school attended by Anjorin said in a statement Wednesday that they had been left in “profound shock and sorrow” at the pupil’s death.

“He was a true scholar, demonstrating commendable dedication to his academic pursuits. His positive nature and gentle character will leave a lasting impact on us,” Bancroft’s, in Woodford Green, near Hainault, said.

London’s Metropolitan Police force said Tuesday’s horror unfolded just before 7:00 am (0600 GMT) when the accused crashed a van into a house fence, hitting a 33-year-old man before stabbing him in the neck.

A 35-year-old man was then attacked inside a nearby property, causing lacerations to his arm, before Anjorin was killed.

Police arrived on the scene 12 minutes after the first emergency call and attempted to neutralise the suspect with incapacitant spray and a Taser gun but these had little effect.

The suspect seriously injured two police officers, both of whom required surgery on Tuesday and remain in hospital.

One, a woman, suffered severe injuries to her arm and nearly lost a hand, the Met said.

The man fled again as terrified witnesses took cover in houses before police used a Taser to overpower him, detaining him 22 minutes after the initial call.

Police have said the attack was not terror related.

It came amid a rise in stabbings in the United Kingdom and shortly before voters decide whether to re-elect London mayor Sadiq Khan for a record third term in local elections Thursday.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has criticised the opposition Labour Party’s Khan for his record on crime.

Anjorin’s death is the second recent tragedy to hit Bancroft’s, after a former pupil, Grace O’Malley-Kumar, was killed in Nottingham last year as she tried to save her friend from a knife attacker.

Valdo Calocane was sentenced to indefinite detention in a psychiatric hospital for stabbing to death 19-year-old O’Malley-Kumar, fellow student Barnaby Webber and 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates.