CNN
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Monday began as a day of celebration for many in Liverpool, the free-spirited, soccer-loving city in northwest England. It ended in panic and horror, after a car rammed crowds and injured dozens of people, including children.
Police are now picking through the details of the disturbing incident in the center of the city, which saw the vehicle tear through fans celebrating the Liverpool soccer team’s Premier League title win.
An arrest was quickly made, but plenty of questions remain – including why a 53-year-old man drove into a throng of people.
Here’s what we know.
Liverpool was awash with red on Monday, with hundreds of thousands of soccer fans cramming its streets to watch an open-top bus parade celebrating the club’s 20th league title.
But just after 6 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET), concern began to trickle through the crowds. Merseyside Police said they had made an arrest, “following reports a car had been in collision with a number of pedestrians on Water Street.”
Footage posted online appeared to show the car surrounded by fans, with a confrontation between the driver and members of the crowd. The vehicle then sped up and veered from right to left across the street, another video showed, knocking people to the ground and causing a frenzied scrum before coming to a stop.
“It was extremely fast,” eyewitness Harry Rashid told Britain’s PA Media news agency. “Initially, we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of a car.”
Over the coming hours, grim details began to emerge. Nearly 50 people were injured, including 27 who were taken to the hospital and another 20 treated at the scene, authorities said at a late-night news conference on Monday.
Four people, including a child, were trapped under the car and needed rescuing by firefighters, Nick Searle, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service chief fire officer, added.
And on Tuesday morning, Liverpool’s metro mayor Steve Rotheram told the BBC: “There are still four people who are very, very ill in hospital.”
But there were no initial reports of fatalities, sparking hope that the worst-case outcome had been narrowly avoided.
A 53-year-old White British man, believed to be the driver, was quickly arrested at the scene, according to Merseyside Police.
The man is from Liverpool, police added.
Officers described the collision as an “isolated incident,” and said they were not looking for any other suspects and were not treating the incident as terrorism.
Monday’s incident, and the uncertainty that followed, brought back painful memories from another tragedy in the area; the horrific stabbing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event last year in Southport, 20 miles north of Liverpool.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, admitted killing the girls and stabbing 10 others in the attack, which stunned the country. He was sentenced to at least 52 years in prison in January.
In the days of anger and confusion that followed the incident, misinformation about the suspect circulated online. Far-right groups promoted a false rumor that the attacker was a migrant, leading to days of race riots that saw crowds of agitators target and attack hotels housing asylum seekers.
Those events may have informed the decision by Merseyside Police, which also responded to the Southport attacks, to quickly release the information that the suspect was White – an unusual step in the early hours of an investigation.
“I’ve never known a case like this before where they’ve given the ethnicity and the race of the individual who was involved in it (so quickly),” Dal Babu, the former Chief Superintendent of London’s Metropolitan Police, told the BBC Tuesday. “I think that was to dampen down some of the speculation from the far-right that sort of continues on X even as we speak.”
But other factors may also be at play – including the fact that terrorism was quickly ruled out as a motive, removing some sensibilities around the information that is made public.
The trophy parade was organized on a nationwide bank holiday, the day after Liverpool lifted the Premier League trophy following the competition’s final round of matches on Sunday.
In a short statement, the club said they were in contact with police and added: “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident.”
A swell of support also came from the rest of the football community. Everton, Liverpool’s bitter on-field rivals, sent a message of support. Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher called it a “devastating end to the day.”
And Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool’s former manager who was on the open-top bus parade, said: “My family and I are shocked and devastated. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who are injured and affected.
“You’ll never walk alone,” Klopp added, referencing the show tune famously covered by Liverpool group Gerry and Pacemakers in 1963, which is now synonymous with the team and sung by fans before every game. Its lyrics were immediately shared across social media on Monday after news of the incident emerged.
The scene of the collision was quickly secured. On Tuesday morning, fireworks and other debris littered the cordoned-off street, relics of a party that turned disastrous.
“Liverpool stands together and the whole country stands with Liverpool,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday.
The investigation into the cause and circumstances surrounding the incident are ongoing.
“I’ve no idea how that car got there,” the area’s MP Kim Johnson told reporters at the scene. “Liverpool City Council and our emergency services are well versed in terms of supporting these types of large events and safeguarding the public with these types of events.”
