Liverpool, England - Images of a large number of football fans celebrating their team’s Premier League title have barely entered the national news broadcast when the notorious right-wing voice began to call the incident a “suspicious terrorist attack” on social media.
X's X account Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster who was known as the leader on the far right of the UK, retweeted the video of the car in which the man wearing Ketchup-Red Strip in Liverpool Football Club wrote "very intentional". (These posts are tagged as "administrators", which may be about the fact that Robinson has not written to them himself since he was in jail at the time.
Others quickly followed suit, believing that drivers were motivated by Islamic extremism.
Within hours, Merseyside Police released details about the suspect detained at the scene, calling him a 53-year-old white British male in the Liverpool area. Officials also urged the public to "not speculate on the situation in question". Within five hours, police described the incident as “isolated” rather than an investigation related to terrorism.
British police released these details, most notably the suspect's game, very fast.
For many, it was a sign of learning from the 2024 Southport stabbing attack, which left the same police force ridiculed for not having enough information soon and allowed rumors to spread. In this vacuum, speculation turned into a call for action, which quickly fell into racist riots, shocking Britain after the deadly attack, killing three young girls and injuring more.
In Southport, violent riots broke out last summer after false information shared on social media claimed to stimulate the suspect as radical Islamic immigrants. Police are accused of failing to share accurate information about the suspect quickly enough to make the rumor unchallenged.
Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotheram "handled the situation wonderfully" in an interview with Sky News, praising Merseyside police for "handled the situation strangely".
Former Metropolitan Police Chief Dal Babu described the unit's rapid release of information, including details about the race of the man arrested in the incident, as "unprecedented".
"I have never known a case like this," Babu told BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday.
"I think it's to reduce some speculation from the far right, even if we're talking about X's going on," he said.
In that case, he pointed out that the suspect was “an asylum seeker on a boat, that was a Muslim extremist – and that was not the case.”
In a press conference Tuesday, Detective Director Karen Jaundrill said the suspect was arrested for suspected attempted murder, dangerous driving and driving were not suitable for drugs.
Assistant Chief Police Officer Jenny Sims said police believe the arrested man has been able to follow the ambulance in response to reports of a public suffering from a heart attack after the roadblock was temporarily unraveled.
More than 50 people were initially taken to or appeared in hospitals for treatment, with children injured. Police said 11 people remained in the hospital for ongoing treatment, but all appeared to be in a "stable state" and "well recovered."
Darrin Hooper, who traveled with Kent’s wife, just 30 miles southeast of London, to celebrate Liverpool’s victory, praised police for their quick responses on the scene as well as on social media.
"They declared it immediately a good thing," he said Tuesday.
"They just have to say. And then it blocks all speculation," 60-year-old electrical engineer Hooper told NBC News.
Sneha Venket traveled to the city with her husband, Liverpool Major fans, and has been attending the parade in Cologne, Germany, and described the events unfolding on Monday as "a painful ending of a very, very happy day".
Recalling last year's grim incident in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, where a 9-year-old child and four adults were killed in a car by the crowd of people driving to the Christmas market, Ventek, 39, said she was not surprised to see the speculation vortex after Monday's incident. In this case, the far right of Europe could soon involve the fear of a deadly attack.
Venket, who is studying screenwriter, said it is important to allow police to investigate before they reach a conclusion, but she said: "Now, it looks like society is more polarized than ever before."
“I think it’s just a global trend.”