usaa we re tracking breaking news. a source tells cnn that british police have identified the suspect in today s deadly terror attack near the london bridge and let s get some expert analysis on this and start with nic robertson. what stands out to you about how this unfolded? i was struck that it was members of the public that took on this knife-wielding man and wrestled it from him and pinned him down that the police got there within five minutes and that was fast and the police were there and pull off the member of public that is holding the attacker down, pull him off and as they pull him back, the person is the attacker is
portcullis of the front of fishmonger s hall where they believe the attack originated before 2:00 and just up on the bridge you could see a tent and that is where police are continuing their investigations, where that graphic scene of the assailant being shot was actually occurred. now bear in mind that we simply know very little about the motivation behind this attacker. his mode up onner andy mimicked that of 2017 which is linked to radical ideology but police are desperately trying to confirm his identity and see whether or not there is any residential properties they could look at and any associations of his to nail down how he became to be there. but i should point out we possibly look back to the al qaeda era and athe idea of command and control that someone is giving the orders and things have changed enormously and it is entirely one lone individual armed with a kitchen knife and
most of them thought by police to have been minor so an utterly terrifying scene and a suspect still on the run but at this point dutch police not thinking this is a terror attack. jim. that is very important to know. nick paton walsh, thank you very much. also breaking, we re looking ahead to a very busy week in the impeachment inquiry. chairman jerry nadler just sent a letter to the president giving him a new deadline to decide whether or not the white house wants to participate in the proceedings. our phil mattingly has more on that. phil, it sounds like there might be wiggle room here for the white house. to some degree. there is two deadlines. there is a hearing next week and this is the next phase of the democratic impeachment inquiry. the house judiciary committee taking up what the house intelligence committee has done up to this point and that hearing a nuts and bolts and constitutional scholars coming up to testify and the white house still has a deadline as of sunday n
cnn s nina dos santos is tracking this from london. what are you hearing at this hour? reporter: well, things are looking calm outside of the london bridge station but it was a different picture about seb hours ago. when the specter of another deadly terror attack made its presence felt on the capital streets. [ sirens ] reporter: terror once again in the heart of london. passengers on this bus became witness to a shocking scene. it looked like members of the public were fighting with a man. it looked like he was trying to be pinned down on the pavement. it looked like a shine of light from the man on the floor and we realized it was a knife and then the police ran over with guns and it ended with the man being shot. reporter: police say they were called to the area just before 2:00 p.m. following reports of a stabbing. after being apprehended by ordinary londoners, a suspect wearing a hoax explosive device was shot dead by officers.
minutes or something i can t remember just before it actually happened and some very similar thing of having a flood of people running and not knowing what was happening and just fear. huge amount of fear on their faces. and you could feel it as well in the energy of just everyone stressing out. reporter: london bridge was the target of another attack two years ago. eight people were killed and 48 were injured. this attack comes just weeks after the terror threat for this part of the u.k. was reduced to substantial and ahead of a crucial general election for the entire country. as for the motivation of the suspect, police say they are keeping an open mind. well, jim, cnn law enforcement sources are telling us that they believe that they have identified the london suspect here in this case. you can bet that authorities will be working throughout the course of the night furtively to try and understand exactly what the motivation was as i said