A SERVING POLICE officer has been confirmed as having died in Monday’s attack at Manchester Arena.
However, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said he could not identify the victim, who was off-duty at the time. Speaking this afternoon, Hopkins said that officers have spoken to the families of all 22 victims of the suicide attack on a concert by Ariana Grande.
Hopkins said that the investigation into the attack, carried out by 22-year-old Salman Abedi, is continuing at pace.
You will be aware that the level of activity in this investigation is intense and is continuing at pace. We made three arrests in connection with the attacks overnight and this afternoon we entered an address in Manchester City Centre using a controlled explosion.
“Officers are currently at the scene but in order to do this safely we briefly had to close a nearby mainline railway, which has now been reopened. Those extensive searches will now continue.
“In total we currently have four people in custody.”
Last night UK prime minister Theresa May raised the terror threat in Britain to ‘Critical’, the highest it has been for a decade, indicating a terror attack is expected imminently.
Hopkins said that while those troops were protecting key sites, they were not on the streets of Britain’s cities.
“There are no military personnel patrolling Manchester but we are therefore able to receive additional armed policing support because of this plan. We are using this to help in our efforts to enable the Manchester Games and Manchester 10k to go ahead.”
Throughout today, victims of Monday’s attack have been named, with half of the names now confirmed.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say