Law enforcement officials have indicated that the assailant was not armed with a firearm, and one of the casualties succumbed to a gunshot wound.
Authorities have confirmed that one of the two fatalities from Thursday’s assault near a Manchester synagogue resulted from a shot fired by an armed officer.
Stephen Watson, the chief constable for Greater Manchester Police, conveyed the force’s belief that the perpetrator, identified as 35-year-old Jihad al-Shamie, was not equipped with a gun, and that the lethal injury was inflicted by a firearm.
“Consequently, pending additional forensic analysis, it is possible this injury was regrettably sustained as an unfortunate and unanticipated result of the prompt measures my officers implemented to conclude this violent assault,” Watson remarked, according to The Guardian.
The individuals who lost their lives were identified as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66. Their deaths occurred outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall after al-Shamie, a British national of Syrian origin, reportedly drove a vehicle into a group of people and then stabbed an individual. Officers neutralized al-Shamie within seven minutes of receiving notification of the incident on Thursday morning.
As reported by The Guardian, the armed officers who discharged their weapons during the assault are being regarded as witnesses, not suspects, in the ongoing investigation into the fatal shooting. The Independent Office for Police Conduct, responsible for supervising incidents involving police use of force, is spearheading this inquiry.
Police further stated that one of the three injured individuals requiring hospitalization also appears to have sustained a gunshot wound.
Three individuals have been apprehended on suspicion of their alleged participation in plotting a terrorist act.