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Major Incident at London Bridge, Several Believed Stabbed. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 29, 2019 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: They don't have the specific details just yet but they say they are responding as if it is terror related.

I want to go live to the scene. Owen Jones is a columnist for the "Guardian." He was by the London Bridge when this unfolded.

Owen, describe for me what you are seeing now and what happened.

OWEN JONES, COLUMNIST, THE GUARDIAN (via phone): So I've left the area. And that's obviously very important. Emergency services need to do their jobs unencumbered. So (INAUDIBLE) where I shouldn't be. I was on my way to work and I was about to try to cross London Bridge, and so this was just minutes after the incident had unfolded and the whole area which suddenly all the emergency services were arriving.

At that point, lots of sirens and the area, obviously I realized what (INAUDIBLE) when I try to basically into a police cordon. (INAUDIBLE). People were running from the area. And (INAUDIBLE) people were fighting, obviously, and the police were yelling at them, keep moving, keep moving. And (INAUDIBLE) obviously people they were panicking in circumstances. Need to obviously keep our thoughts. And you know, it was a surreal moment when you're in an urban area, people are fleeing the area you are about to cycle through. Emergency services swarming through the area. You know, it feels like you're in a slightly surreal disaster film. So -- and --

CABRERA: Yes. No doubt about it.

JONES: But it was, you know --

CABRERA: Let me ask you, Owen, when you were seeing people running, when you had this great police presence, did you have any idea what was going on? Did they tell you anything? And did you see anybody injured?

JONES: No. You know, but these -- when you're in these situations, very important how it is confusing and actually in these situations often people watching at home have a better idea of people actually in the area, so, you know, checking social media themselves, because all of a sudden the whole area, you know, I was just seconds before -- arrived seconds after the cordon was in a very rushed and (INAUDIBLE) being set up to stop people from coming across London Bridge. By then you see meters away from the bridge itself that people were

running. And, you know, they've been told to urgently evacuate the area. I was -- I have friends who work there, who were -- and you can hear, by the way, the sirens at the moment. I have friends who have been evacuated from their places of work or there's locked down in their workplaces.

Now watching the scene, sorry, unfold, from the top levels of their buildings. So, you know, it's important as I said, people who aren't needed certainly in the area let the (INAUDIBLE) to do their job. But it was a -- it was very (INAUDIBLE). People were -- when you're in that area, you know, you see people obviously quite scared.

CABRERA: Right.

JONES: But you know what -- when you see a swarm of humanity running towards you, you instantly obviously find out that very, very unsettling and people were very, very worried. But as I said, the emergency services surrounded the area very promptly, and probably just five minutes after it happened. They arrived quite early.

CABRERA: By all accounts, this is still an ongoing incident.

Owen, you just, you know, mentioned the sirens, and we could hear them in the background there. Were those vehicles going toward London Bridge still?

JONES: Yes. Yes. They're all heading towards the area. So I've been cycling. I have to take -- so I cycled the Tower Bridge, which is the next bridge along from London Bridge, and the area, you know, had ambulances and police cars coming from every different direction really to the scene. But even now, I'm quite far away now. I'm over a mile away from the area. You can still just see emergency services driving towards the incident itself. Obviously still in need of emergency resources heading in that direction.

CABRERA: And Owen, real quickly, how big of an area is cordoned off? Do you know?

JONES: Yes. It was very sizable because I cycled -- I tried to cycle to a different area and all the traffic on the major roads averted. So the area around London Bridge is all cordoned off and the area was being evacuated so people were running in a different direction to leave the cordoned off area. But it's a significant part of a obviously major part of inner London.

[10:35:04]

JONES: And as you probably know, we don't know yet, we've seen the incidents that happened.

CABRERA: Right.

JONES: In this nature. What we do know of course in 2017 there was a terrorist attack in that very area. So London Bridge, Borough Market nearby, they already conjure up in people's heads in London, you know, a terrible incident, took place only in 2017.

CABRERA: Right. Owen Jones, we really appreciate you taking the time with us. Sending you our best and please do stay safe. Thank you for that update live from the scene in London as this ongoing incident continues there on the streets of London with London Bridge cordoned off. Police saying they are responding to this incident as though it is terror related.

We know one man has been shot by police. Police have also said there was a stabbing with several people injured. We'll stay on top of it. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:39]

CABRERA: Welcome back. We continue to follow the breaking news out of London at this hour, an ongoing incident there, what police have described as a major incident that they've responded to with one person shot by police. A stabbing involved here. Multiple people injured.

We have video now shot by an eyewitness. At the moment a suspect was apprehended, we are told. We are not going to show you the moment he was shot by police. There's also a man who took a knife from the scene. We've chosen to blur the video of that part of that man just because we don't know who this man is or his role. Let's watch the video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a knife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And now I want to bring in Lloyd Griffiths. That's the man who shot the video you just watched there on London Bridge.

Lloyd, thank you for calling in. That must have been traumatizing to observe that.

LLOYD GRIFFITHS, EYEWITNESS WHO TOOK VIDEO: Yes. It was very, very traumatizing. A horrible experience to see. Just something you can even think about, really.

CABRERA: What made you decide to pull out your phone and start recording?

GRIFFITHS: I was actually on my phone before. Then I realized there was an altercation happening so I just kind of pressed record. So I was kind of leaning on the front-- the top deck of a London bus. And I was just kind of like scrolling on my phone. And I just saw the altercation and then I just kind of pressed record and I just felt like something was happening and I didn't quite understand what was going on. CABRERA: And so back up for us and talk to us about what was

happening around the time of day when this took place, when you were passing by, and happened to just witness what police are now responding to as potentially terror related? Do you know who this person was? How many people were involved? Can you set the scene for me?

GRIFFITHS: Well, I can just tell you what I saw. But when I realized something was happening I kind of looked up from my phone. I mean, it looked like members of the public were fighting with a man that was -- it looked like he was trying to be pinned down onto the pavement on the left-hand side of the pavement on London Bridge. At that moment, I kind of saw like a -- it looked like a shine of light come across from the man on the floor and I realized quickly it was a knife, like the sun was shining on the knife.

It was a relatively large knife. At that point, I felt maybe I couldn't quite see what was going on there. And very quickly, there's at least one member of the public went actually call to help and then the police went over with some guns and it ended with the man being shot.

CABRERA: So it was your understanding as you were recording that it was a police officer who fired that shot?

GRIFFITHS: Yes. Definitely. Yes.

CABRERA: How quickly did the police respond to this incident?

GRIFFITHS: It would have been seconds. They were very, very fast.

CABRERA: And that was even before -- that's before you started recording?

GRIFFITHS: The police weren't there when I first started recording but from my -- I think it was maybe 20 seconds later. So this was all under a minute, I would say. They were very quick and very swift. And thank goodness for the police in London.

CABRERA: And after you stopped recording, then what happened?

GRIFFITHS: We were kind of locked on the bus for a little bit. And from that moment then we were -- everybody was kind of like wondering what was happening. And we didn't know if there -- had explosives on them or anything like this.

[10:45:03]

So we all kind of went to the back of the bus to get as far away as possible. And then we heard the police kind of like shouting at us and people more or less saying run, so the driver opened the doors and we ran as quickly as we could.

CABRERA: And then did you get escorted away from there? Or -- where are you now? GRIFFITHS: No. I'm at home now. I think obviously in this kind of

situation, I think it is probably best the police focus on what they need to focus on so we were just kind of like shouted at to run. So --

CABRERA: Have you had a chance to be in touch with law enforcement to let them know you have this video?

GRIFFITHS: No, not yet. But I'm most may know, I'm happy to speak to them at any point once they need some more information.

CABRERA: How do you process what you witnessed today and especially at the backdrop of, you know, London Bridge being a scene of a former attack that happened a couple of years ago, the heightened sense of alert that people have been under? I know that terror alert was just recently lowered slightly but there have been a number of attacks involving knives also recently. How do you process all of this?

GRIFFITHS: I don't think anybody is really -- knows how to process it. It's something that anybody ever taught to process. I think in this kind of situation adrenaline takes over and it's kind of a fight or flight kind of situation. And when you're told to run, you run.

CABRERA: Yes.

GRIFFITHS: So it was as simple as that to me.

CABRERA: Lloyd Griffiths, thank you very much for sharing your video with us and for sharing with us what you've witnessed and what -- you know, as we all try to make sense of all of this, that information is certainly powerful and helpful. Thank you again.

GRIFFITHS: No problem.

CABRERA: Be safe. Quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:34]

CABRERA: Welcome back. As we continue to track the breaking news out of London. An attack, an incident on London Bridge. And Nick Paton Walsh is on scene now for us.

Nick, what are you seeing as we await a press conference here in the next 10 minutes or so?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, I should point out we are quite some distance away from the north end of London Bridge. Police as you would expect have put in a cordon which is two blocks now distance for us. Since I've been here the last five or 10 minutes we've seen four or five police support vehicles, some ambulance support vehicles, coming in with their sirens blaring, not much leaving the scene, which might suggest possibly that the situation is relatively under control. But at the same time, too, the British Home secretary, the kind of

interior minister, if you like, Priti Patel, tweeted about 45 minutes ago that the situation was, quote, "ongoing." What we know right now from Metropolitan Police, and there's a lot of information out there, you heard from an eyewitness yourself, a lot of people saw this, it happened in one of the most vulnerable and central parts of London just at the peak of Friday lunch hour, people perhaps going home early, people perhaps out with colleagues.

What we know, the 158 police were called to the premises in the area around London Bridge. There appears to have been a stabbing there. Emergency services attended and then later on the police have gone on to say that they are treating this incident as though it is terror related. They're not declaring it as such at this point because the circumstances are, quote, "still unclear." But they are going on to add that one man was shot as a result of this. That tallies with a lot of some of the graphic social media video that's been out here.

Now the terror related designation we've heard so far, that is probably an abundance of caution on behalf of the police because of where this is happening, because of the sad history of a terror attack on London Bridge in 2017. But at the same time, too, you have to remember as well there's a lot of gang-related violence in London possibly as well. There are clear circumstances are still pretty unclear and of course also this particular time of day in which the attack occurred is not necessarily peak hours, if you were, for example, looking to cause as much terror as you possibly could amongst ordinary individuals.

But behind me here the situation looks a little calmer. We've just seen a police van turn up here, carrying away a variety of pieces of equipment but very hard to tell precisely what's happening down at the bridge itself because a distance in which we are from there -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK. Nick Paton Walsh on the scene in London.

Again, we are an expecting some kind of an update from law enforcement in about five or so minutes. Let me turn to James Gagliano. He is former FBI, a CNN law enforcement analyst.

And too often, James, you and I have been covering events like this. I remember you were alongside me when we covered the bridge attack in 2017. They're treating this as terror related, but also say it's unclear exactly what they're dealing with. What do you think is happening right now? And I only have about a minute or so.

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via phone): Yes, Ana. Great point. You and I did meet in June of 2017 during that fatal attack where I think eight people were killed and a number were injured. Look, police are using careful terms here, treating, not declaring. And that's definitive language there because in the United States and the U.K. is also one of the Five Eyes, this intelligence alliance that we share information, we always assume terrorism until proven otherwise.

And that doesn't mean that we don't follow the facts, the evidence, continue looking at all possible outcomes, but they have to treat it that way until proven otherwise.

CABRERA: OK.

[10:55:03]

GAGLIANO: One last point, Ana, the fact that this is a knife attack, we kind of look at that and we say well, it wasn't a gun. Knives are a dangerous implement. London has a big problem with this in Europe with their very strict gun laws. Any size knife is lethal.

CABRERA: Yes.

GAGLIANO: It can hurt you, nick you, any nick training necessary, no ammo needed, no malfunctions. This is a serious attack. Let just hope that -- let's hope that the casualties are kept to a minimum if not zero.

CABRERA: Yes. James Gagliano, thank you so much.

That does it for us. Of course Kate Bolduan will be picking up the coverage right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking news.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Alex Marquardt, in for Kate Bolduan today.