The father of a victim in the 2017 London Bridge attack said he is “deeply saddened” by the Friday stabbings, but “unsurprised” the public had to step in to fight off the assailant.
“I’m unimpressed, but unsurprised, that once again the public have been forced to ‘do their thing’ and step in where politicians haven’t,” Simon McMullan told The Telegraph.
McMullan’s son, James, was the only British victim of the 2017 attack that killed eight and injured 48. In that incident, three terrorists mowed down people with a van on the London Bridge, before storming the city on foot and stabbing people at a nearby market and restaurants, police said.
James, a 32-year-old British-Filipino and one of the 2017 attackers’ first victims, reportedly died from a hemorrhage and stab wound to the chest.
“In an ideal world, it would be nice to think these attacks could be stopped. Perhaps the only ready solution is more live police on the ground, and an engineered solution to restoring public trust,” Simon McMullan said.
The 2017 massacre was eerily similar to Friday’s attack, when convicted terrorist Usman Khan allegedly killed two people with a knife, before bystanders tackled him to the ground and he was shot by police, authorities said.