A man was arrested early Tuesday on the suspicion of murder after three people were found dead in the city of Nottingham, in central England, in an apparent series of attacks that the police described as linked and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain called a “shocking incident.”
Details were few, but the police said they were first alerted just after 4 a.m. about two of the deaths. They were then called to a nearby street in the city center, where three other people were found wounded after a driver attempted to run them over with a van, according to a statement by the Nottinghamshire Police. Soon after, another man was found dead in a third street.
A 31-year-old man was arrested in connection with the deaths. The three other injured people, including one man who was in critical condition, were receiving treatment in a hospital, the police said.
“This is a tragic series of events which has led to the lives of three innocent people being taken,” Chief Constable Kate Meynell of the Nottinghamshire Police said in the statement. She said that the authorities were “keeping an open mind” as they gathered evidence to determine a motive behind the attack.
“Currently, we do not believe there is anyone else involved in this incident,” the chief constable said.
From the early morning and into Tuesday afternoon, several main roads had been closed and Nottingham’s tram service had been partly suspended.
The authorities had not given any indication that the alarming succession of violence was connected to terrorism, with the police saying only that they were working with a team of detectives and counterterrorism police to “establish the facts” in an ongoing investigation was still in its “early stages.”
“It is too early to comment on casualties or the exact nature of the incident,” the regional ambulance service said in a statement posted to Facebook. It added that emergency teams were working alongside the police with a “well-rehearsed” response.
“The police must be given the time to undertake their work,” Mr. Sunak wrote in a Twitter post expressing his condolences for the families of the victims.
“To see this level of violence on our city’s streets is unimaginable and emotional for everyone who lives and works here,” said Ben Bradley, who leads the Nottinghamshire County Council and represents a nearby town in Parliament, in a statement posted to Twitter.
“I’m grateful to the police and other authorities who have stepped in and made an arrest,” he added.
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