Three young girls have died after a knife attack in Southport, England, at a Taylor Swift–themed dance class on Monday. As of Tuesday, five other children and two adults remain in critical condition. Writing on her Instagram Story, Swift said that she is “completely in shock” following the tragedy. “The horror of yesterday’s attack in Southport is washing over me continuously,” she wrote. “These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
“It is understood that the children were attending a Taylor Swift event at a dance school when the offender, who was armed with a knife, walked into the premises and started to attack those inside,” police constable Serena Kennedy explained earlier in the week. “We believe that the adults who were injured were trying to protect the children at the time they were attacked.”
On Thursday, local police charged 17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana with the three girls’ murders, as well as ten counts of attempted murder and possession of a bladed article. (A judge struck down an order that would have kept Rudakubana’s name anonymous until his 18th birthday, ruling that it would have “little practical effect in terms of protecting the welfare of the defendant or his family.”) After appearing in court on Thursday, Rudakubana will remain in youth custody, and his trial is set for October 25. The motive remains unknown.
When police arrived on the scene, they found that multiple people, many of whom were children, had been attacked. Colin Parry, a local shop owner, told The Guardian that he had a tense exchange with the person he believed to be the attacker. “He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay for the taxi, so I confronted him at that point,” Parry told the British newspaper. “He was quite aggressive, he said: ‘What are you gonna do about it?’” Later, one of Parry’s employees saw “about ten kids go running past him, all bleeding, and one of them collapsed on the floor.”
Mere hours after a vigil was held for the girls, violence erupted in Southport on Tuesday night. The New York Times reported that members of the English Defence League, a far-right anti-Islam organization, were part of a group that attacked a mosque, assaulted police, and set cars on fire. The rioters were fueled by disinformation that had been proliferating since the attack. Before the assailant’s identity was made public, online agitators like Andrew Tate claimed that he was an “undocumented migrant.” Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales.
“It is sickening to see this happening within a community that has been devastated by the tragic loss of three young lives,” said Alex Goss, assistant chief constable of the Merseyside Police Service, in a statement. “There has been much speculation and hypothesis around the status of a 17-year-old male who is currently in police custody and some individuals are using this to bring violence and disorder to our streets … We have already said that the person arrested was born in the U.K. and speculation helps nobody at this time.”
The families of the three girls who were killed have allowed their names to be released. They were Bebe King (6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9). “No words can describe the devastation that has hit our family as [we] try to deal with the loss of our little girl Bebe,” said King’s family in a statement. “Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do our Princess, like we said before to you, you’re always our princess and no one would change that,” said Aguiar’s.
This post has been updated.
