LONDON — An attacker fatally stabbed an officer outside Britain's Parliament before being shot by other armed police Wednesday afternoon. The chaotic incident left three other people dead, including the attacker, and at least 20 injured, police said.
"Four people have died. That includes the police officer who was protecting parliament and one man we believe to be the attacker who was shot by a police firearms officer," Britain's top counterterrorism officer Mark Rowley told reporters.
"Officers - including firearms officers - remain on the scene and we are treating this as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
The incident took place on the first anniversary of attacks by Islamist militants that killed 32 people in Brussels.
At least one of the dead, a woman, was in the crowd hit by the vehicle, according to Britain's Press Association.
The threat level for international terrorism in the UK was listed at severe. The city was also on alert for the Thursday funeral of Martin McGuinness, former IRA commander.
Dennis Burns, who was just entering Parliament for a meeting, told the Press Association he heard a radio message saying an officer had been stabbed. Police and security rushed outside as he was going in.
"When I got inside I was wondering what the hell was going on and I saw dozens of panicked people running down the street," he said. "The first stream was around 30 people and the second stream was 70 people.
"It looked like they were running for their lives," he said.
Reuters reporters inside the parliament building heard loud bangs and shortly afterwards saw two people lying on the ground in a courtyard just outside, within the perimeter of the parliamentary estate.
On the bridge, witnesses said a vehicle struck several people, and photos showed a car plowed into railings.
A Reuters photographer said he saw at least a dozen people injured on Westminster Bridge, next to parliament. His photographs showed people lying on the ground, some of them bleeding heavily and one apparently under a bus.
"I just saw a car go out of control, and just go into pedestrians on the bridge," a woman who gave her name as Bernadette told Sky News.
She was on a tour bus on the bridge at the time. "As we were going across the bridge, we saw people lying on the floor, they were obviously injured. I saw about 10 people maybe. And then the emergency services started to arrive. Everyone was just running everywhere."
Former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski posted a video on Twitter that showed people lying injured on the bridge.
Sikorski, a senior fellow at Harvard Center for European Studies, says he saw at least five people lying on the ground after being "mown down" by a car.
In Parliament, witnesses reported hearing sounds like gunfire.
Leader of the House of Commons David Lidington said an assailant at Parliament was shot and that there were reports of other violence nearby.
Journalists there said they were told to stay in their offices. Press Association news agency reported that two people were seen lying within the grounds of Parliament.
George Eaton, a journalist with the New Statesman, said that from the window of Parliament's Press Gallery, he saw police shoot a man who charged at officers.
"A large crowd was seen fleeing the man before he entered the parliamentary estate," he wrote on the publication's website. "After several officers evaded him he was swiftly shot by armed police."
Prime Minister Theresa May was at Parliament when the incident began, but her office says she is safe.
The scene unfolded within clear sight of the London Eye, a large ferris wheel with viewing pods with views of the capital. Footage showed the pods full as viewers watched police and medical crews on the bridge.
Video footage aired by Sky News showed people on Westminster Bridge laying down on the ground and an eyewitness reported that at least five people had been hit by a vehicle, AFP reported.
Material from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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