LONDON \u2014 Police arrested a man at London\u2019s Heathrow Airport on Sunday after a crowd of people were hit with pepper spray during a robbery at a parking garage that caused several hours of travel disruptions.<\/p>\n
Five people were taken by ambulance to a hospital and another 16, including a 3-year-old girl, were treated at the scene, officials said. None of the injuries was believed to be serious.<\/p>\n
The incident in the Terminal 3 garage on the outskirts of London happened when a group of four men stole a woman\u2019s suitcase in an elevator and sprayed her with an irritant, Metropolitan Police said.<\/p>\n
Police arresting a man at Heathrow Airport in London after a group of people were pepper sprayed during a robbery at the airport\u2019s parking garage. Hudaifa Yunis \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
The incident caused several hours of travel disruptions at Heathrow. Hudaifa Yunis \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
Travelers waiting to board the Heathrow Express train during the delays caused by the robbery and pepper spray attack. ANDY RAIN\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Passenger Tom Bate said he saw three young men in black with their heads covered run from the elevator and then he experienced a burning sensation in his throat and immediately began hacking.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in the room was coughing,\u201d he told Sky News. \u201cIt was one of the weirdest things I\u2019ve ever experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said the robbery victim and the assailants knew each other and the crime was not being investigated as terrorism.<\/p>\n
Bate said he initially feared the worst as a large group of officers carrying guns \u2014 a rarity in the UK where most police don\u2019t carry weapons \u2014 ran past him shouting.<\/p>\n
Armed police officers arriving at Heathrow Airport to respond to the attack. Tom Bate via REUTERS<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolutely terrifying and I 100% believed that I was in a terrorist attack for a few moments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said an officer pointed a gun at a man and ordered him to the ground to arrest him.<\/p>\n
A 31-year-old man was held on suspicion of assault. Police were searching for the other suspects who left the scene.<\/p>\n
The incident caused several hours of delays for passengers trying to get to and from the airport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 Police arrested a man at London\u2019s Heathrow Airport on Sunday after a crowd of people were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,1994,257,192458,16,15,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-618935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-heathrow-airport","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-pepper-spray","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115680989903286768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}