Car ramming injures 27 football fans

LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom (AFP) — A car rammed into a packed crowd celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League title victory on Monday leaving 27 people hospitalized, but police said they were ruling out terrorism.

“We believe this to be an isolated incident, and we are not currently looking for anyone else in relation to it,” Merseyside Police Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims told a press conference, adding a 53-year-old white British man had been arrested.

“The incident is not being treated as terrorism,” she added.

Some 27 football fans were hospitaliZed, including two who were seriously injured, after a dark-colored vehicle swerved through the huge crowds hitting people in its path, minutes after the players’ open-topped bus passed by.

Four children were among those hurt, including one seriously.

Tens of thousands of people had turned out in torrential rain for what should have been jubilant celebrations to see the northwest English side’s victory parade.

The bus carrying the team had passed by Water Street just minutes before the car ran into the crowd, witnesses said.

“It was extremely fast,” said Harry Rashid, 48, from Solihull, near Birmingham, central England, who was at the parade with his wife and two young daughters.

“Initially we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of the car,” he told reporters.

“It was horrible and you could hear the bumps as he was going over the people.”

Twenty other people were treated at the scene for their injuries, in a large blue tent set up on the street.

Four people, including a child, were trapped under the car and had to be removed, said Nick Searle, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service chief fire officer.

Images shared on social media showed the car being brought to a halt and swarmed by angry fans, who broke the back windows as police sought to hold them back.