We were in London on Friday to attend a University open day for my daughter and her friend. They wanted to go shopping afterwards and we agreed to split up and meet back at our car in Perivale at 6pm. My wife and I were travelling on the Central Line train back to the car at around 5.10pm and the driver announced that Oxford Circus station was closed due to an on going police investigation. We didn’t think anything more of it until we got to East Acton which is overground and thus our mobile phones were working. We received a frantic call from our greatly distressed daughter telling us there had been a terrorist incident and they were locked in the Reiss store just round the corner from Selfridges. Naturally we got back on the train in the direction of Bond Street the nearest tube station even though we understood it to be closed at that time. We decided to exit at Marble Arch but thankfully just as we were about to exit the station one of the members of staff told us Bond Street had just re-opened. So back on the train and we were eventually safely reunited with our daughter.
She told guys they had been in Selfridges on the ground floor about to leave when I woman screamed loudly and the panic set in. The Selfridges staff urged everyone to leave the store. My daughter and her friend got caught in a stampede, older people were apparently knocked to the floor and panic ensued resulting in some minor injuries to a number of people. My daughter sand her friend were ushered into Reiss where they were comforted along with several other shoppers.
Kudos to the Police for being on the scene in less than a minute but what were Selfridges doing ushering people out of their shop when others were taking them in for shelter? I appreciate that such situations will be foggy but I would hope that Selfridges will review their response to this event and re-appraise the way their staff should react to situations such as this.
Oxford Circus panic – should lessons be learned?
by 29 Comments
My first thought? Fuck Selfridges from now on.
Maybe the scream gave staff the impression that the threat was inside Selfridges, rather than outside it?
Tricky, isn’t it? Imagine the response if there *had* been an incident within the store and everyone had been urged to stay inside?
Not sure about that but from what my daughter said the woman came into the shop and screamed.
However Olly Murs was in the shop and tweeted that everyone should get out. For which he has rightly taken a lot of stick.
Although as The Last Leg pointed out, who on earth seeks their news information from Olly Murs’ Twitter account? (The follow-up was that it ain’t true until Rizzle Kicks have confirmed it).
Honestly – I couldn’t say if it was right or wrong. It would be interesting to have Selfridges explain why the did what they did. It is very easy to jump to conclusions and if Selfridges were under the impression that the threat was in store than evacuation would be sensible. But it does sound like they could have managed the evacuation better.
Yes I agree – not attaching any blame to Selfridges but would expect them to review their procedures. a big number of people leaving their store would have added to the panic in the street.
My daughter said there were barriers outside of the store that they had to jump over which caused most of the injuries as people struggled to get over them. But again I suspect the barriers are there to stop a potential terrorist ramming an explosive laden truck into the store. A very difficult one.
Does anybody actual know what triggered the incident/panic? Apart from new stories about two men being subsequently arrested and reports of ‘shots being fired’, I haven’t found anything conclusive.
The terrorists are winning, aren’t they?
Panic ensues even when they are sitting at home watching telly. I can’t remember events like this when the IRA were at their peak, either in Birmingham after the pub bombings or in Warrington years later.
I suppose the threat is greater and the attack methods more varied and potentially more lethal. Plus, every detail is captured on mobile phones, social media, the news etc. Dire warnings from MI5 and the government designed to increase vigilance, inflate the fear as well.
Whatever the case, we, the public, are successfully being put in a state of terror.
You big drama queen.
Everyone still went out in town Friday night, Oxford Street heaving all weekend, everyone back to work as usual tomorrow.
Bit of a flap on Friday, but people aren’t “in a state of terror”. They’re getting on with their lives. In stark contrast to all the hysterics on the Internet/social media (whose ghoulish rush to be the first to report bad news massively assisted in making Friday worse than it needed to be).
Cowboy up. Or cowgirl up if you want to be appropriately 2017 about it.
Love and kisses.
BL
So. There was no hysteria in London?
My point is that we need more stiff upper lip as we did in the seventies when faced with terror. Two guys have a bit of a row on a tube station, no guns, and there is a stampede in Selfridges. What has become of us allowing the terrorists to win so easily?
The advice to run and tell seems flawed to me.
Shocked to hear we need a bit more of what we had in the 70s.
Come to London tomorrow Tigs and see if anyone gives a shit about what happened on Friday or has let it impact their lives. There’s plenty of stiff upper lip here, everyone is cracking on as usual.
Great!
From this distance it was a shock that something so trivial could have closed down two tube stations and a major shopping area for 90 minutes. Let’s hope people keep calm. Panicking won’t help in a real attack anyway.
👆🏻
This. Although pity the poor Mail hacks and the usual Tommy Robinson/InfoWars mob, who jumped all over it and started gleefully spreading panic before anyone knew anything, and whose disappointment at the false alarm was both palpable and grimly hilarious. They were deleting tweets faster than Donald Trump on receipt of a subpoena.
No Londoner will even remember this come Tuesday. I’m sure it was distressing in the moment, but the main lesson to be learned is to stay off social media at times like this.
The only people helping the terrorists win are the ones who yell that the sky is falling every time they get a whiff of potential violence.
Don’t go hype-shopping (“black friday” will remain a second-division steely dan song for me). Avoid gold-taps capitalist shops that are a red rag to violent extremists. Buy what you a priori know you want from the ‘dodgers rather than get annoyed when the high street shops have mediocre stock. Go shopping in areas with more independent shops outside main high streets. Make presents for those who appreciate them. Biggest of all, know you are far more likely to be killed Christmas shopping when driving there, or crossing a road. I would never be surprised if there are attacks in the next few weeks. But the probability of being killed is trivial, and rather than lots of security in Cheam High Street, plod enforcing the laws about persons of interest would be more sensible.
Exactly this re: road safety. Very well said.
Another up, Vincent. People have no head for stats or probability. None of us do. You’re more likely to be crushed to death by a vending machine than to experience a terrorist attack first hand, I read somewhere.
I ask my classes quite regularly what they think the minority ethnic population of the UK is, for example, and they always guess north of 60% when the answer is about 13%. A friend of mine who lives in Co Durham spent part of his weekend counter-protesting against a group called Bishop Auckland Against Islam, which I found astonishing: I’d be amazed if there’s more than 20 Muslims in Bishop Auckland (though my mate has now waggishly taken to calling the town “Imam Auckland” just to annoy the pricks). And yet to these 19”-neck geniuses, the bloody Muslims are everywhere.
We all need to calm the hell down.
“…and they always guess north of 60% when the answer is about 13”. So they don’t remember this simple statistic from all the previous times you’ve asked them?! I guess this must be the source of your disappointment, Bob. I advise ongoing detention…😉
“Bang ‘Em Up Bob.”
Your new school nickname.
Oddly, they keep giving me new classes each year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I can see where both Tiggerlion and Bingo Little are coming from here. That such a trivial incident can spread chaos and panic (for however brief a period) suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way these incidents are reported. This is not an attempt to trivialise what SteveT’s daughter went through, but I imagine witnessing a panicky woman does nothing to help matters, or enable people to make rational decisions. Neither do tweets from Olly Murs et al.
On the other hand, I’m saddened when events happen that lead friends and family confess they are too scared to go to London for fear they may be caught up in an attack. London is a fantastic, incredible city and people shouldn’t hide.
The chaos and panic was pretty much limited to one intersection and a few hundred people, though. Frightening if you were there, for a few minutes, I’m sure, but this was one street corner in a vast city. I really doubt there was much spreading of anything.
A friend and his missus were “locked in” at an extremely posh restaurant for the duration of the scare. A sacrifice they bore bravely and with good cheer.
I can recall trying to walk along Oxford Street in December 1978 (note – IRA regularly blowing things up in the 70s) and it was so unspeakable in terms of crowds and vulnerability that I decided at that point to avoid big city Christmas shopping on busy days ever again. Seriously, i have been to mongkok (reputedly a population density of 130,000/km2) and that was more tolerable. If I want seasonable atmosphere, there are far nicer ways to get it than shopping.
Indeed. My thoughts and prayers are with those who find themselves at Oxford Circus in the runup to Christmas.
Whichever fucknugget it was who tweeted about a truck, blood and bodies sure didn’t help either.
I believe the tweet about the truck was sent a week before Friday’s incident and was picked up by certain media outlets and included in their reports.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/daily-mail-london-shooting-tweet_us_5a18715ce4b0d4906caeabda
I undertsand that mistakes were made with people being given the wrong advice. The thing is, is to learn from mistakes made not to bollock people. I`m sure every word of advice given, was to the best of that person`s knowledge, the right advice. I`m sure ALL shop staff in London have been given training on what to do when a suspected terrorist act takes place. I reckon there are a lot of temps working in stores over Xmas, have they had training? The Police must learn from what happened in this situation. How do you control a large number of people who instead of stopping and thinking, will panic and run in several directions. It`s a bloody nightmare. Good luck to the people who have to learn and pass on knowledge in these situations.
Olly `Fat Arsed` Murs? So everyone in the shop was walking around looking at his tweets on their phones. Yeah let`s hang him. WTF?
When people start panicking and running, it’s already too late. The trick is to prevent that sort of thing even starting.
I agree once a stampede starts it’s impossible to control. Prevention through good training of staff on the ground is the only way but it isn’t guaranteed to prevent panic. These incidents will become more frequent and dangerous. This is our way of life in these times.