Liverpool FC Victory Parade: Car Driver Plows Into Crowd

Europe|Driver Plows Car Into Crowd Along Parade Route in Liverpool

The driver of a car crashed into pedestrians celebrating the city’s championship soccer club on Wednesday in Liverpool, England, the police said, bringing chaos to what had been a festive parade attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

Video from the scene showed a major response by police officers and ambulances along Water Street in the city center. Several people in attendance told the BBC they saw a car plow into the crowd around 6 p.m.

Merseyside Police said in a statement that they were contacted about 6 p.m. Monday after reports that a car had collided with the crowd. The car was stopped at the scene and a man, who was identified by the police as a 53-year-old white male from the Liverpool area, was detained.

“We would ask people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding tonight’s incident on Water Street in Liverpool city centre,” the police said in a statement. “Extensive enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances leading up to the collision. We would ask people not to share distressing content online.”

Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, said in a statement on social media that he was being briefed on the incident Monday evening.

“The scenes in Liverpool are appalling — my thoughts are with all those injured or affected,” he wrote. “I want to thank the police and emergency services for their swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident. I’m being kept updated on developments and ask that we give the police the space they need to investigate.”

Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered along a 10-mile long parade route that wound through the city Monday to celebrate the fact that the Liverpool Football Club had won this year’s Premier League, the top tier of English soccer. Just hours earlier, the police department had urged people to celebrate safely.

“Please keep yourselves and other people safe during today’s #LFC Victory Parade by not climbing buildings, structures, scaffolding or street furniture,” the police said in a statement on X, the social media site. “The parade route covers 10 miles and there are plenty of safe vantage points to see the LFC bus. Hope everyone has a great day!”

That celebratory mood was shattered later in the afternoon amid the reports of the car colliding with some of the people on the street.

Video from the scene shared on social media showed a dark-colored van or sport utility vehicle crashing into the crowd and bodies on the ground. The video shows people rushing to the victims and around the vehicle. Later video broadcast on television news shows the car surrounded by dozens of the police and ambulances after the incident.

This is a developing story.