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Emergency services at the scene after multiple people were hit by a car during the Liverpool Victory Parade in Liverpool, Britain, May 26, 2025.
A car plowed into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans during a parade in the English city yesterday, injuring dozens of people.
Ambulance officials say 27 people were hospitalized after the attack, with two in serious condition. They say four of the 27 were children. The parade was celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory last month.
Police said they did not believe the incident was terrorism-related and that they had arrested a man they believed to be the driver. They said he was, quote, “a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area.”
They were unusually quick to give that description. A former chief superintendent in London’s Metropolitan Police told the BBC this was an effort to cool speculation that the episode was an Islamist attack.
With most people off work for the UK’s Spring Bank Holiday, hundreds of thousands of fans had gathered to watch the Liverpool team and its staff travel through the city center on an open-top bus with the Premier League trophy.
An eyewitness told BBC Radio that people were only alerted to the danger by screams from the crowd. That allowed some to jump out of the way when the driver showed no sign of slowing down.
Videos on social media showed people thrown into the air as the car rammed into spectators. When the car stopped, angry fans converged on it and began smashing the windows as police officers intervened to prevent them from reaching the driver.
In a post on X, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his thoughts were “with all those injured or affected,” and that he was receiving updates on developments.
