Two people armed with knives fought in the Brussels-Midi station in Saint-Gilles on Tuesday morning, the federal police said. Police were called and arrived around 9:45 a.m. The two people involved were arrested and released.
Travelers from the Gare du Midi avoided the worst this morning. At around 9:30 a.m., a man armed with a knife started shouting in the middle of the station. “I was having a coffee in the waiting area, and I heard screaming very loudly“, tells us a lady after having warned us via the orange button Alert us. “I didn’t know where it could have come from, I thought it was a theft… But when I got on my train, I saw a crowd, and several security guards who were trying to control a gentleman who had look elsewhere.“
The lady of about sixty years is then very shocked by the scene which takes place in front of her, and other travelers. “I didn’t see directly that he had a knife in his hand“, specifies our witness. “A large butcher’s knife. I saw another young man on the ground, bloody in the face, in the hands. Another gentleman arrived to bring him down, I admire his courage“, adds the lady.
“I intervened immediately”
This other gentleman introduces himself as a French policeman. He also contacted our editorial staff to inform us of the information. “I arrived at 9:40 a.m. at the station, and I saw this man in the middle armed with a knife, he was shouting”, says this source who prefers to remain anonymous. “I intervened immediately and subdued the gunman with the help of two security guards. I immobilized him, and handcuffed him.“
This policeman confirms that another man was lying on the ground, injured according to him in the neck. To protect the other travellers, he isolates the handcuffed man while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. “When he jumped on him to subdue him, the knife fell to the ground“, says the lady who contacted us. “People were in panic.“
The policeman is surprised at the lack of reaction from the witnesses, who, shocked, did not dare to intervene. “When we see this, we always fear the worst“, he concludes. “There was blood everywhere.”
“I was so scared“, ends the lady of about sixty years. “It was a surreal scene.“
The injured was taken to hospital. Police reinforcements arrived quickly to arrest the suspect. Contacted by us, the federal police confirmed the information. “The railway police intervened around 9:45 a.m., for a knife fight“, explains the spokesperson. “One person is slightly injured, his life is not in danger.”
Two people arrested
Two people armed with knives fought in the Brussels-Midi station in Saint-Gilles on Tuesday morning, the federal police said. Police were called and arrived around 9:45 a.m. The two people involved were arrested and released. One of them was slightly injured in the fight.
A man armed with a knife started shouting in the middle of Brussels-Midi station on Tuesday around 9:30 a.m. Several security agents then tried to subdue the individual, according to a testimony collected by the media, while he was holding a “butcher’s knife” in his hand and another man was on the ground in front of him, ” bloodied in the face, hands”.
A French policeman who happened to be in the station intervened to neutralize the dangerous individual. It was then the police, called in the meantime, who took over. Since the facts took place in a station, it was the railway police, dependent on the federal police, who intervened.