UK police have arrested a man after a car plowed into Liverpool fans during the soccer club’s Premier League trophy parade on Monday evening.
“The man arrested is a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area,” Merseyside police said in a statement, urging people not to speculate on the circumstances of the incident.
The local police force previously said they were contacted just after 6 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET) “following reports a car had been in collision with a number of pedestrians” in the city center.
“The car stopped at the scene and a male has been detained,” it added.
The incident comes the same day the city was filled with soccer fans attending an open-top bus parade to celebrate Liverpool Football Club’s 20th top-flight league title.
Video from social media appears to show the vehicle plowing into pedestrians celebrating in the street.
“This gray people carrier just pulled up from the right and just rammed into all the people at the side of us … It was extremely fast. Initially, we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of a car,” one fan, Harry Rashid, told the UK’s PA Media news agency.
Rashid, who attended the parade with his wife and two young daughters, said crowds of people ran over and started to smash the car’s windows. “It was horrible. And you could hear the bumps as he was going over the people … I saw people lying on the ground, people unconscious. It was horrendous. So horrendous,” he said.
The parade on Monday – which coincided with a separate May public holiday in the UK – involved players from the Liverpool squad being driven around the city center in an open-top bus. Hundreds of thousands of gleeful fans joined the festivities along the 10-mile route (16 kilometers) waving flags and flares of red smoke.
“The scenes in Liverpool are appalling – my thoughts are with all those injured or affected,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, thanking police and emergency services “for their swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident.”
Footage shared by Reuters news agency showed emergency services tending to people, some being carried into ambulances on stretchers.
Photos from the scene also showed authorities cordoning off the heavily littered roads, with police officers investigating the area. A tent has been set up where the crash occurred.
Liverpool Football Club said it is in contact with Merseyside Police regarding the incident. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident. We will continue to offer our full support to the emergency services and local authorities who are dealing with this incident,” it said on X.
Everton Football Club, the local rival team to Liverpool FC, and the Premier League also offered their condolences on social media.
In a subsequent post on social media, North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) said the scene in Liverpool’s city center “has now been cleared,” adding it will provide information regarding casualty numbers at a press conference later Monday.
A local hospital group has made a plea for people to refrain from calling its switchboard. “We know that many people are concerned about loved ones. Next of kin will be contacted, so please help us to manage the incident as best we can by refraining from calling our switchboard,” NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group said on X.
