Taylor Swift says she is “in shock” after three children died in an attack on a dance class in the UK

LONDON (AP) — A 9-year-old girl injured in a knife attack during a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class in northwest England died Tuesday, bringing the death toll to three as police question a 17-year-old suspect who was arrested minutes after the rampage.

According to Merseyside Police, the other fatalities were girls aged 6 and 7.

Eight children and two adults remain in hospital following the attack in Southport. Both the adults and five of the children are in critical condition.

Swift said she was “in complete shock” and was still processing “the horror” of the event.

“They were just little kids in a dance class,” she wrote on Instagram. “I don’t know how I can ever express my condolences to these families.”

A 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Residents laid flowers and stuffed animals as a sign of their appreciation at a police cordon on the brick-lined street of the seaside resort near Liverpool – also known as “sunny Southport” – whose beach and pier attract holidaymakers from across northwest England.

Witnesses described scenes “like something out of a horror movie” as bloodied children ran away from the attack just before midday on Monday. The suspect was arrested shortly after on charges of murder and attempted murder. Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived for years in a village about 5 kilometers from Southport. No charges have yet been brought against him.

Police said investigators do not consider Monday’s attack to be terrorist-related and are not looking for other suspects.

“We believe the injured adults were bravely trying to protect the children who were attacked,” said Merseyside Police Commissioner Serena Kennedy.

It is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent increase in knife crime has stoked fears and led to calls for the Government to do more to tackle bladed weapons, by far the most common instrument used in British murders. Witnesses reported hearing screams and seeing bloodied children emerging from Hart Space, a community centre that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to boot camps for women.

The attack occurred during a yoga and dance workshop for children ages 6 to 11 on the theme of Taylor Swift.

“They were on the street, running out of the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, pointing to the neck, back and chest.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the attack as “appalling and deeply shocking”. King Charles III expressed his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathy” to those affected by the “absolutely horrific incident”.

Prince William and his wife Catherine said: “As parents, we cannot even begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed or injured in Southport today must be going through.”

Colin Parry, who owns a nearby car repair shop, told The Guardian that the suspect arrived by taxi.

“He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay for the taxi, so I confronted him,” Parry was quoted as saying. “He was quite aggressive and said, ‘What are you going to do about it?'”

Parry said most of the victims appeared to be young girls.

“The mothers come here now and scream,” said Parry. “It’s like a scene from a horror movie. … It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”

The worst attack on children in Britain occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in a school gym in Dunblane, Scotland. The United Kingdom Prohibition of private property of almost all handguns.

Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in the UK; in the year to March 2023, knives were used in around 40% of homicides.

Although mass stabbings are rare, some of these incidents have sparked fear and outrage and attracted enormous attention in recent years:

— In April in London a man with a sword killed a 14-year-old boy on the way to school and seriously injured four other people, including two police officers.

— In June 2022 in Nottingham in central England, a paranoid schizophrenic man two college students fatally stabbed on his way home from the end-of-school-year party, then killed a 65-year-old man, stole his van and ran over three pedestrians.

— In Reading, west of London, a rejected Libyan asylum application in June 2020 three men fatally stabbed and three others injured.