Police Say That Several People Have Been Injured In A Stabbing Incident Near London Bridge; Police Addresses Media Regarding London Bridge Incident.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Alex Marquardt, in for Kate Baldwin. Today I want to welcome our viewers from the United States and around the world. We're starting with breaking news out of London. Police say that several people have been injured in a stabbing incident near London Bridge. I want to warn you that the video of the incident we're about to show you is graphic. Now, you can see in this video, a man on the bridge right there holding a knife. Then you can hear gunshots fired by the police. Police say that they are treating this as a terror related incident, and they say one man has been detained. Nearby stores and railway stations are on lockdown, the situation very fluid, developing by the minute. We're standing by for a press conference any minute now from Scotland Yard -- that is the London Metropolitan Police Headquarters. But first we're going to go to our Nick Paton Walsh. He is on the scene with the latest. Nick, what do we know at this time?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Minimal confirmed information, Alex. But what we do know is this incident seems to have started before 1:58 or so in the afternoon, a busy time certainly in this packed central part of London. Police were called to an establishment, premises, they say during which there was a stabbing and it appears as a result of that, that a number of people have been stabbed and one man has been shot. We believe the person who has been shot may in fact have been the assailant that you've seen in some of those graphic videos. What is not clear at this point is the cause of the argument. As you said yourself, Scotland Yard British Police here are saying that they are treating this as though it is terror-related, but they do say also that the circumstances remain unclear. It is important to remember as this develops here because in London, there are lots of other reasons why a stabbing may occur -- gang violence, namely in particular. Let me just remind you the scene we're seeing around us here. I am far away from the north of London Bridge here, a couple of blocks really from the streets here and the scene behind me is what you would normally expect frankly to see of an instant this nature in the British capital. A vast amount of police resources is pulling up into here. A dozen or also vehicles have been blaring their way through this tape behind me here. We've not seen emergency services departing in a hurry which may suggest that perhaps this instance to some degree is under control. But I should point out, about 50 minutes or so ago, essentially the top law enforcement official in the United Kingdom, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary on Twitter referred to this incident as ongoing. So we simply don't know if that one assailant silence who appears to have been shot was the only assailant. We don't know the cause of this argument. We hear eyewitnesses referring to how there appears to be an initial panic and then some degree of a pause, about 20 minutes or so, one man inside a hamburger restaurant like everybody else told to hide beneath the tables as this unfolded, and of course, anybody here in Central London, London Bridge, given the tragic, awful history of the 2017 terror attacks here would immediately have been on their guard and of course, hearing gunshots in Central London, frankly unheard of. A city in this part, to some degree in lock down here and as I say, we are seeing continued emergency services pull up behind me here now. We just heard from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has again referred to this as most likely being terror-related thanked the emergency services. But it does appear from some of the social media videos of something of a swift response from British Police who sadly over the past two years have become worryingly practiced in dealing with events like this. Well, I should say, the circumstances, they say are still unclear as to how this unfurled. But certainly, around about two o'clock today, they were called to a premises here where stabbings appear to have occurred. They've now just confirmed in the last 10 minutes that a number of people have been stabbed and one man has been shot, but still the situation still unfurling. And around me here now, even as we speak this instance, a matter of hours old, people still being moved away from parts of the buildings, even a couple of streets from London Bridge, the south of which we believe is where this instance was predominantly focused -- Alex.</s>MARQUARDT: Yes, as you say, Nick, the London Metropolitan Police, well-practiced. It has been relatively quiet of late after a string of incidents in 2016. Today's incident, of course, shattering all of that. Nick Payton Walsh on the scene there. We will come back to you soon, but I want to go to Max Foster who is joining me now from our London Bureau. Max, as we've noted, we are waiting on a press conference from Scotland Yard, from the London Metropolitan Police. Given what we have heard from them today, which is not a lot of detail, I'm wondering what you can read between the lines when they say that as a precaution, they are treating this as a terror related incident. And then from the London Ambulance Services saying -- calling this a major incident. They are not trying to tamp this down, are they?</s>MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, now, the ambulance service, obviously, if a number of people are stabbed and someone has been killed, then that is a major incident. What the police will be looking at is containing the incident of course, but also trying to look for the motive here and we have to consider the language, so when I've spoken to anti-terror police quite recently, their response when there is an incident, which looks serious is to overreact and treat it as a terror-related incident before they've got it confirmed. So if we look at the language, they're saying they're treating it as terror related as a precaution. What they're not saying is they have evidence that it is terror-related. So that's what we're looking at from this press conference. Can the police confirm this is terror- related?</s>FOSTER: On the Bridges, Alex, you know, this area well, after the last instance in 2017, which had a car involved, they put these big concrete bollards along a lot of the major bridges to avoid that happening again. A car wasn't involved, it doesn't seem this time, but it does show that just with a knife, you can cause a huge amount of damage. So is it someone who had some sort of personal grievance or is it someone part of a wider network? This is are the sort of questions we're looking to this press conference for.</s>MARQUARDT: Max, I want to play the video of this incident. Again, I want to remind our viewers that this is graphic. This was shot by a passerby on London Bridge as the assailant was taken down by police. There it is right on London Bridge. And what you're seeing is the London Police -- we're going to listen in to the London Police.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, he has a knife.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a knife. [Gunshot]</s>MARQUARDT: All right, well we are still waiting for a press conference from the London Police. That there is the incident that unfolded just hours ago on London Bridge. The police taking down a man, shooting him and taking him into custody. We do understand from the London Metropolitan Police that several people were injured and stabbed. Now, I want to bring in my panel of experts, some very well versed people when it comes to these types of incidents: Paul Cruickshank, Kim Dozier, Peter Bergen and Susan Glasser. Paul, first to you, your reaction when you see the types of reaction -- the law enforcement reaction there and what the police are saying?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, they're very concerned. They are treating it as if it was a terrorist attack. They haven't confirmed it was a terrorist attack. But we just saw that video play out. Police at a sudden moment shooting somebody who is on the ground, why would police shoot somebody who is on the ground perhaps after their weapon has been taken away? Well, you know, that's not something that would normally happen. There must have been something that really concerned them about what he has. Could it have been something like a suicide vest or a fake suicide vest? We saw on that bridge, on that area in 2017, in the month of June, a group of three individuals, ISIS-inspired terrorists drive a car into people and then stab people. They were wearing fake suicide vests. They were then shot by police. So a lot of the hallmarks of a potential terrorist attack here, but that has not been confirmed so far by British authorities.</s>MARQUARDT: You don't often hear about gunshots being fired in central London, they simply don't have that many guns over there. But in the wake of the spate of terror attacks that we saw in Europe, the London security forces, the police really did beef up. And there are I understand, quick response teams across London for this kind of thing, because we understand that according to an eyewitness, the police arrived within moments.</s>CRUICKSHANK: That's right. And in many terrorist attacks, most of the people are killed in the first few minutes. And so there's a real impetus to get people on the ground very, very quickly. The last time there was an attack in this area, I think it was something like eight minutes for police to respond. Their police very, very nearby because they're very concerned that they don't want to have play out what played out in Paris in 2015, by a gunman on the rampage through the city, killing a lot of people. The quicker you can respond, you can keep the casualty count down.</s>MARQUARDT: Peter Bergen, we don't want to jump to conclusions. We never want to immediately assume that something is terror related. But the London Police themselves are saying that as a precaution, they are treating it as terror. Does it look like that to you?</s>PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I mean, I'd make a slightly different point, which is three weeks ago, the British authorities lowered the terrorism warning in in the country from severe to substantial. And if indeed, this is terrorism, which we don't know, that's going to be hard to explain why they would lower it to the lowest point it has been since August of 2014. Severe, you know, substantial still means that there is a -- you know, somewhat high likelihood of an attack, but severe means that an attack is very likely. So I think that in the wake of this, we may see some soul searching amongst the authorities on this issue.</s>MARQUARDT: Kim Dozier, we do -- not to split hairs, but we do have to differentiate between a coordinated terror attack that was perhaps long in the making versus a so called lone wolf attack, the likes of which we have seen quite a few of in Europe.</s>KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely. Look at this point, it could be, there's an outside chance that this could be as it was initially reported some sort of gang-related violence that was mistaken as terrorism. That said, Britain might have lowered its warning level, but across Europe and I just got back from talking to officials in Turkey, they have been waiting and watching for an ISIS comeback attack, especially as we approach the holidays. I don't know if Black Friday counts as a holiday, but the fact of the matter is, after the fall of DAISH, everyone has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. When are they going to declare, we're not gone despite your declarations otherwise.</s>MARQUARDT: Well, this is a very fluid situation. We're going to take a quick break. We are waiting for the London police to give a press conference. We'll be right back with more.