Woman arrested and police not looking for anyone else in connection with incident
This article titled “Woman arrested on suspicion of murder after supermarket stabbings” was written by Steven Morris, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 5th May 2020 18.43 UTCA woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man died and three other people were injured during a knife attack at a village supermarket in south Wales.
Police said an elderly man died, another man was in a stable condition at the University hospital of Wales and two other people had suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Witnesses described seeing people running from the Co-op store in Penygraig, Rhondda Valley, on Tuesday afternoon.
The Welsh ambulance service said four people had been taken to hospitals in Cardiff and Newport following the incident near Pontypridd.
South Wales police said a 29-year-old woman from Porth was being held at Merthyr Tydfil police station.
The South Wales force had also referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), but did not reveal why.
Ravi Raj, the manager at the Penygraig post office, said he had seen people running from the Co-op, some bleeding, and he believed that there had been a death.
“There was a woman attacking people with a knife,” he said. “I saw one of the men bleeding from his neck and one of the women from the side of the neck.”
He added: “I walked down the road when the people were running out so I just wanted to see what had happened. I couldn’t go inside because it was already blocked. I heard there was a lot of blood inside the Co-op.”
It is believed that people were stabbed inside and outside the Co-op on the village’s main shopping street.
DCI Mark O’Shea, of South Wales police’s major crime investigations team, said: “One man has died and his family is being supported by specially trained police officers.”
He added that a full investigation has been launched and officers were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.
The Rhondda MP, Chris Bryant, said it had been a horrific incident and added: “It may be we need to think quite long and hard about the support we give to people during this period when they are cooped up at home.”
The force said: “One woman has been arrested and is in police custody. The public are asked to avoid the area until further notice.”
Another witness said: “I just saw a hat and cans on the floor outside the Co-op as I was pulling up and thought, ‘That’s strange’. Then paramedics arrived.
“My husband went to go into the Co-op but got stopped by people who told him that there was a woman inside with a knife who was stabbing people.
“I stayed in the Jeep and more police and paramedics arrived and they went to a man who was in the van parked in front of my Jeep. This man had been stabbed repeatedly, they took him out of the van and placed him into the ambulance.”
A takeaway owner said a woman came into his shop bleeding following the incident, though he had not been present at the time. “She told my nephew, ‘Put the shutters down, put the shutters down’ – she was bleeding and he called the police and ambulance.”
The street is lined with terrace houses and shops, most of which are shuttered because of the lockdown. Some businesses were open, operating under lockdown conditions.
A Welsh ambulance service spokesperson said it was called to the incident at about 1.50pm: “We sent one rapid response vehicle, three emergency ambulances, two advanced paramedic practitioners and our hazardous area response team, who were supported by an air ambulance.
“Four people were taken by road to Cardiff’s University hospital of Wales and the Royal Glamorgan hospital.”
Leanne Wood, the Welsh assembly member for Rhondda where the village is located, described what happened as a “serious violent incident in our local Co-op”.
She said: “This is the shop that is my local grocery shop. I know the staff there, I know most of the regular shoppers there, and it is a high street that is different to no other in Wales. My sympathies go to all those affected, their families and the shop staff who must have been traumatised to witness such horror.”
A spokesman for the IOPC said: “We have been notified today by South Wales police of a serious incident in Penygraig, Rhondda Cynon Taff.
“We are awaiting a formal referral from the force which will be assessed to decide whether any IOPC investigation is required.”
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