LONDON — Police investigating the deadly attack on a children’s Taylor Swift-themed event in a seaside town of Southport, United Kingdom, said they were searching for a motive, as the musician said she was “in shock.”
“The investigation is in its early stages and the motivation for the incident remains unclear,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said on Monday.
Floral tributes near the scene in Hart Street, Southport, Britain, Tuesday July 30, 2024, where two children died and nine were injured in a “ferocious” knife attack, police said.
James Speakman/AP
Officers responded just before noon on Monday to reports of a stabbing at a property on Hart Street in Southport, a seaside town about 20 miles north of Liverpool, according to Merseyside Police.
Two children were killed and nine others were injured in a stabbing attack at an event at a dance school in the seaside town, police said. Six of the wounded children were in critical condition, along with two adults, who were also stabbed, police said.
“We believe that the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Kennedy said Monday.
Merseyside Police said the children were attending a Taylor Swift-themed event at a dance school. A flyer for the two-hour event called it a “Taylor Swift Yoga and Dance Workshop.” The event was for children between 6 and 11 years old, according to post on the organizer’s Instagram.
The “horror” of the attack was “washing over me continuously,” Swift said in a post on Instagram. She said she was “completely in shock.”
“The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families and first responders,” she said. These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to even convey my sympathies to these families.”
Police officers and forensic personnel put up a fence on Hart Street in Southport, northwest England, on July 29, 2024, following a knife attack.
Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images
A 17-year-old boy from Banks, a coastal village in Lancashire, just outside Southport, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, police said.
The suspect, whose name was not released, was born in Cardiff, Wales, police said.
The “full circumstances” were still being investigated, she said, adding that the attack wasn’t being investigated as a terror-related. Police were not searching for additional suspects, they said.