Anyone like to reconsider what they posted about the train attack on Saturday night?

[margegunderson]

There were (to my mind) some horrific posts claiming that it MUST be a terrorist attack, demanding information on the attacker’s race and motivations NOW, shouting about Starmer censorship and picking fights with anyone suggesting it might not be cut and dried and to wait for more information. Hideously racist as well.
If that was you - any reflections today? What will you do if there’s a next time?

I don’t know where my head is at with half the country going mad about immigration and race. If found myself feeling slightly glad that the suspect has an English sounding name so that they can’t jump on that band wagon.

No. It’s statistically far less likely to have been carried out by a ‘far right’ perpetrator. The vast majority of terrorist attacks in the last 20 years have been by Islamic extremists.

Go and look at MI5 and google terrorist attacks if you don’t believe me.

There are known terrorists among the boat people though. One was caught after raping a woman in Hyde Park. He was from Egypt.

We would be stupid not to be open to the possibility. Oh wait…

You said this in case you have forgotten.

Yet the train worker who tried to save others and was left fighting for his life has a Muslim sounding name.
The racists and Muslim haters must be losing their minds. Not only was the attacker not a Muslim immigrant, it was a Muslim who risked himself to save other passengers.

You clearly have assumed he was a Muslim and tried to use that to sow division. In the second paragraph of your post.

To understand my point, just imagine yourself reacting to someone saying that the knife man had a ‘Muslim sounding name’ and then went onto assume he was a Muslim.

There's a very specific definition of Terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2007 (right at the start so an easy google find). It doesn't fit that definition, and to use it would potentially muddy the waters and be seen as potentially influencing a legal case due to the high profile nature of this. Same as how the Liverpool car ramming guy was also not found to be terrorist related.

It is indeed sensible to be open to the idea that people arriving in small boats might well have bad intentions. However it was the way that it went from ‘someone stabbing people on a train’ to ‘bomb anyone trying to cross the channel in a small boat’ before there was one single scrap of information.

Most of the awful posters on that thread will be suffering from some form of crisis trying to process the fact that the guy currently fighting for his life after tackling the attacker with unimaginable courage appears to be a Muslim….

Weren't there some posts on one of the other threads claiming that the knife man was only targeting white people, despite not one single name being released at that point?

This poor but incredibly heroic man must just have been an oversight on the attackers part in that case.

I hope Mr Zitouni has a full and fast recovery.

Actually footage on my local news will let anyone who doesn't know the area see that Peterborough is very multicultural and plenty of the passengers on the train came from a very broad range of backgrounds.

I don't know what went on with the troubling wrongful arrest but I do suspect it's also an oversimplification that the other man was the only other Black man on the train.

I'm not playing hero-competitions here - please take that as a given. I think everyone involved in the events response was truly outstanding - but I think it will be a really useful measure of the attitudes in our country if we compare the publicity that Samir - an Arabic, likely moslem man who confronted attacker in person, got injured; gets vs. the train driver - sealed in cab, quick thinking and skilled, but not at personal risk - white veteran with medals. It should be equal or very close shouldn't it - but let's see what happens.

And I also think we need to take a beat before we condemn the response of the police to earlier incidents. Those who wanted Williams caught when he was in the wind (and in the case of the barbershop, it only got reported 2 hours after he had gone) also need to think about their opinions on facial recognition cameras on public transport and infrastructure.

I imagine there is going to be a pile-in on Cambs police coming - their efforts are already getting omitted when we see reports of how the BTP stormed the train (BTP weren't anywhere near until after the events).

It would appear Anthony Williams is homeless so we need a bigger national conversation about the rise in homelessness and its links to poor mental health provision and treatment and care.

I wonder if Russia has been investing in sending a load of bots onto prominent western internet sites in order to try and change the zeitgeist of the popular culture. We know they are terrified of the strength of our diversity and would probably do anything they can to put a stop to it by sowing discord among communities. We must not fall for it.

has the train driver been named? He certainly acted coolly and professionally, and did his job well. But I’m pretty sure he would not put himself in the same category as the man who is currently critically ill in hospital after putting himself between a knife wielding criminal and his victims…..

Yes, he's been named, yesterday in fact.

I really can’t say too much but I sort of know the train driver. I’m amazed at what he did and how he acted.

I’m not minimising his actions of course. But presumably he was doing what he was trained to do?

Oh my goodness.

If it should come up, please add to the very justified heap of praise this MNer's sincere thanks to him and his colleagues – particularly those who confronted the attacker in person.

Especially of course to his seriously injured colleague who put his own body between the attacker and the young woman. That man deserves the George Medal.

You definitely are minimising. I don’t imagine anyone outside the armed forces, police or fire service is expected to put themselves in harm’s way to protect other people. I really hope he gets the George Medal, he absolutely deserves it.

Yes I think the train driver himself has already credited his colleagues and said he was only doing his job.

@BIossomtoes , I assumed @CurlewKate was referring to the train driver re "only doing his job."

I don't think anyone is going to say the seriously injured colleague, Samir Zitouni, was only doing his job.

I was talking about the train driver. Who was obviously very calm and professional. But was “only” doing his job. An earlier poster was suggesting that his actions were on a par with Zitouni’s.

Yes, it would be really helpful if you didn’t sow discord by blaming football fans and hoping for the perpetrator to be a white man. That upset a lot of people.

Well it turned out to be a British man and with that in mind, I think you need to apologise for the way British culture made this British man commit a very British crime on a train full of innocent people. After all, isn’t that what people like you would expect from Muslims or ‘foreigners’?

I have to admit I immediately thought ‘terrorist attack’ - the first news that came out was that it was two black men, running through the train, stabbing randomly. Then we heard that one of the men said ‘kill me’ as he was being tasered. It had all the hallmarks of previous terror attacks.

I did think, here we go again, more people that hate our country and our people, why should the general public not be safe when they leave their homes?

That doesn’t make me racist - im more than happy to live side by side with people from all backgrounds, religions as long as they live a good life and don’t harm others.

We should be allowed to get angry when people from other cultures, religions and race come here to cause terror and kill people. We should also be angry when British people cause terror and kill people.

It doesn’t mean we are racist. Hopefully I’m explaining myself so it’s understandable.

I’m struggling believe that you are real. You certainly aren’t serious. Your left wing father that you said influenced you so much certainly didn’t help you.

What do you mean by ‘people like me’ exactly?