Scotland Yard confirmed to the media that the Westminster attacker was killed in the string of events earlier today, but what they haven’t confirmed yet is his name, although from all the commotion on Twitter, you would think they had. It all began with the attacker driving a car through a crowd on Westminster Bridge and ended with a stabbing and shooting outside the Houses of Parliament.
Officials say others also died in the incident, and while they’re not giving the name of the Westminster attacker yet, a lot of media outlets were. But the man whose name has widely been reported as the attacker may still be in jail.
Man wrongly named as Westminster attacker
We’re not going to give the name of the person who’s widely being accused of being the Westminster attacker, but he’s someone British authorities are apparently already familiar with. There are many videos of him spreading hate speech online, and his Twitter account has been suspended (although that hardly implicates him in today’s incident since the company recently shut down hundreds of thousands accounts for spreading hate speech).
In some videos posted on YouTube, the man reportedly states that people should kill the police and says that everyone who works at Parliament is an infidel. He’s also a spokesman for a British Muslim organization that was banned about a decade ago.
But there’s a huge problem with him being the Westminster attacker. Lots of Twitter users claim that this (Trevor Brook aka Abu Izzadeen) man is still in prison, although at least one person thinks that the suspect looks like the man in the videos. Now some U.K. news outlets are now retracting their reports that he was the attacker. It’s unclear whether the person (Trevor Brook aka Abu Izzadeen) who was named is actually still in prison or not. Everything is hearsay at this point.
Unfortunately, this age of social media means fake news travels fast. Even longtime journalists can be taken in and believe that police have given the name of a suspect when, in fact, they haven’t and the given name came from someone making a guess.
Four killed, many others injured
So while we don’t know for certain the name of the Westminster attacker, at least the dust has cleared enough to say exactly what happened. At least four people died and 20 were injured in today’s string of events, which police are treating as an act of terrorism.
Channel Four news have withdrawn their report allegedly naming the Westminster suspected attacker accepting man in question is in prison.
— Alan Travis (@alantravis40) March 22, 2017
It all started at around 2:40 p.m. local time, according to British police. Officials said at a news conference that a man plowed through a crowd on Westminster Bridge heading toward Parliament, killing two and leaving many others injured in its wake. Among the injured were children who were visiting London from France.
After crashing the vehicle into a railing in front of the Houses of Parliament, the Westminster attacker stepped out of it and moved toward the Parliament building. He then stabbed a police officer to death before being gunned down by other officers at the scene. Police have not officially released the attacker’s name yet.
