What London Police Learned From the Last Big Attack
Law enforcement expected that a terrorist incident like Wednesday’s was inevitable. In many ways, the response system worked.
LONDON—Within seconds of Wednesday’s terrorist attack, the Houses of Parliament went into lockdown. Doors were bolted shut by staff, and MPs were locked into the Chamber of Commons. Minutes later, militarized police from a response team set up in the wake of the Paris attacks spread through the surrounding streets. Doctors and nurses from St. Thomas’s Hospital, on the opposite bank of the Thames, ran to the aid of casualties lying on Westminster Bridge while a police boat plucked from the water an injured tourist who’d fallen from it. The speed of the response was striking.
