London church shooting leaves 6 injured: Everyone was screaming and shouting, says neighbor
Sylvie Claire / January 16, 2023
A 7-year-old girl is in critical condition after a shooting Saturday at a church in London that also injured five others, police said.
Worshippers, who had come to attend a mass in honor of a mother and daughter who died in November, ran screaming from this Catholic church in the capital when the shots rang out. "Initial investigations suggest that the shots were fired from a moving vehicle which then drove away from the scene," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement as it appealed for witnesses. "I heard this loud bang and thought it wasn't normal, and the next minute everyone was screaming and shouting," a neighbor told PA. In addition to the seven-year-old girl, another 12-year-old girl and four women were injured in the shooting near the busy Euston train station. The other girl was released from hospital after being treated for minor leg injuries.
Four other women, ages 21 to 54, whose lives are not in danger, are still hospitalized, police said.
A witness told the news site MyLondon that the shots were fired as mourners who had attended the mass watched the dove release that followed. The priest in charge of the service, Father Jeremy Trood, told the PA news agency that it was a mass in honor of Sara Sanchez, 20, and her mother, who died within a month of each other in November, the first from leukemia and the second from thrombosis.