Police quiz teenager over Russell Square bloodbath

Detectives were yesterday in contact with mental health authorities in London as they continued to question the 19-year-old suspect in the Russell Square stabbings.Zakaria Bulhan is under arrest on suspicion of fatally stabbing Darlene Horton, the wife of an American professor, following the “spontaneous” six-minute rampage at 10.30pm on Wednesday which left five other people with knife wounds.More than 30 police officers later searched the council flat where Bulhan, a Norwegian of Somali background, lives with his mother and two siblings next to St George’s Hospital in Tooting.Today the South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS trust said it was working with officers from Scotland Yard but declined to comment further.It came amid a report that Bulhan had recently tried to harm himself, as neighbours and friends told how he was a “quiet type” who had been “socially awkward”.A family friend told The Times that Bulhan had called an ambulance three times in the past six months.She said: “He has been very unwell. He wanted to kill himself. I saw his mother with an ambulance outside their flat and she said Zac had called it because he wanted to hurt himself. He’s called the ambulance about two more times because he was feeling unwell. His mother was very afraid.”Former friends at Graveney School in Tooting described Bulhan as a “teacher’s pet” who was occasionally bullied during his early years.Rakesh Naidu, 18, said: “I can’t believe it, I’m just telling myself it must be a mistake.“We used to get really competitive over grades in maths and debate religion all the time.“He was a devout Muslim and he would passionately defend it, but he respected my opinion too.“He was a bit socially awkward but as far as I knew he didn’t have mental health problems.“He wasn’t the jock but he wasn’t the kid who ate glue at the back of the class. He just flew under the radar.”Another student from his school year said: “He was picked on a bit when we were younger — people used to bully him about the shape of his head and silly things that kids do. I remember him getting really down about it at first but he got over it.“He seemed to have a good life with his mother. He didn’t get into drugs or petty crimes like the some of the other kids. We all split up going to different colleges and he was never big on social media so we lost touch.”Neighbour Jennifer Ocampo, 31, a carer, said the family were “best neighbours you could hope to have”.She said: “He was the quiet type and he wouldn’t make eye contact if he passed you on the stairs, but his mother is really nice. She always wore a full black burka but her sons wore Western clothes.”Bulhan is understood to have moved to Britain aged five in 2002 from Norway, where his family had been given asylum.He had just completed his first year studying for a B-Tech in IT at South Thames College’s Morden campus.Horton, 64, who died despite efforts by a Spanish family to revive her, was the wife of Florida State University psychology professor Richard Wagner, who was said yesterday to be “absolutely devastated” by her death.They had decided to stay on in London for an extra day after he spent the summer teaching with the college’s study abroad programme.The five others injured included Israeli holidaymaker Yovel Levkowki, 18, who said she was slashed across the hand as she approached the knifeman, believing he was a victim.She said she was lucky to be alive after watching the attacker go on to slaughter Horton in front of her.“I don’t know if it’s luck or fate but it’s a miracle,” she said. “The woman who was standing next to me died before my eyes.”The other victims include a Briton who remains in a serious but stable condition after being stabbed in the stomach.An American man and an Australian man and woman were discharged from hospital yesterday.l A newly formed group of heavily armed police officers are to keep London’s streets safe from terror attacks.The officers are part of a new wave of 600 highly trained marksmen deployed onto the streets of the capital yesterday.Clad in grey Kevlar body armour and carrying a cache of weapons including sniper rifles, automatic assault rifles, handguns, submachine guns and tasers, the armed response teams will also be trained to operate on water, and to abseil down onto buildings.They will also carry state-of-the art support gear including battering rams and heavy cutting equipment.Special fast response units will operate on high-speed BMW GS800 motorbikes designed to get to the scene of any terror attack as quickly as possible.Their deployment comes after the Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the terror threat is more “concerning” following the terror atrocities in Europe.In an interview with the Standard, he also issued a warning to Londoners in the event of an attack urging them to hide adding “if you can’t hide then run”.Among the new tactics to keep London safe from terror attacks are: Armed police on BMW GS800 motorcycles to get two officers to incidents as quickly as possible.More police patrolling places that large numbers of people go across the capital.Armed officers searching more cars at checkpoints.Sir Bernard said: “We know that the threat level is severe and that an attack is highly likely, what we are concerned about is what we’ve seen in Europe.”He added: “We’ve been very successful in the past few years in stopping attacks and feel we are in a strong position to prevent an attack.“We also feel like we can respond very quickly. We want to reassure people of that.”“I want them [armed officers] to be friendly; I want them to approach the public and to be approachable to the public.“I want the public to be able to go up and talk to these officers and that’s part of their briefing.“You need intelligence from the community. We then act on it as a security service and we want to stop them before they attack us.“Of course if they still get through and we can’t guarantee they will never get through we have got to be ready.He added armed officers will be deployed on motorbikes to help beat the London traffic.He said that would allow officers with firearms to get to incidents quicker than if they were fighting through the gridlock in the capital.“Our firearms officers are able to patrol the streets by motorbike and get through London traffic.That’s something new that people will see.“That’s one of the things we have in the background in the event of an attack.“If we can do that in large numbers, we can get through the traffic.” The motorbikes will feature a driver and pillion passenger, meaning that two officers can arrive at an incident in double-quick time.The operation, dubbed Operation Hercules, will also see more armed officers patrolling central London’s landmarks, but there will also be armed police in areas where they have never been deployed before as the force today began implanting officers in a “wider span of locations”.The extra armed officers will bring the total number of armed officers in the capital to 2,800.The force will also be increasing the number of vehicle checkpoints where armed officers will be carrying out automatic number plate recognition to stop a vehicle that might be deemed suspicious.“Iconic parts of London will see more armed police but ultimately we will be patrolling the areas that have the most people,” he said,In the event of an attack, which on the weekend he said was a matter of “when, not if”, he advised Londoners: “We would say let the police know and get out of the way of the people who are firing guns or attacking and hide so that they can’t find you. If you can’t hide then run.”He added: “The reality of having to deal with armed and deadly attackers is that you need firearms officers who will use force to stop those attackers in their aim. Our firearms officers are the ones who will run towards the danger. They are our heroes.”Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the announcement.He said: “The threat level here in London has not changed, but it does remain at severe and especially in light of recent deadly attacks in Europe it is important we are prepared should the unthinkable happen.“We will see more armed officers on our streets, but there is no reason to be alarmed.“All of our police officers are playing their part and working closely with all of our communities to prevent the possibility of an attack.”