The people of Wallsend were shocked on Monday afternoon after a "frightening police incident" saw emergency services descend on the Holy Cross area following as-yet-unconfirmed reports of "a chase".
Police were seen recovering a knife from a front garden, but Northumbria Police have yet to confirm the nature of what happened. Witnesses and neighbours reported hearing shouting, seeing a chase and told of how shocking screams had disrupted a summer afternoon. Police forensics teams and detectives were still in the area conducting door-to-door enquiries well into the evening in the vicinity of Sussex Gardens and St Hilda's Avenue.
Shortly after 2pm, the police, North East Ambulance Service and the Great North Air Ambulance were all on the scene - with neighbours reporting that "all you could hear was the chopper". On one of the hottest days of 2022 so far, others told how they had seen shocking scenes from their doorsteps.
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A neighbour who had been at his window just metres away from the scene of the incident told ChronicleLive : "I didn't see how it ended, but from the window, I was just opening it, I saw these two lads were running. I caught a glimpse, that was all. There was a bloke behind him chasing. I couldn't see anything, but he was obviously shouting."
The same man also explained how "there were no words" for what he had seen and that he had heard screaming and shouting - and said he estimated police had been "right behind" the incident, arriving "within something like 60 seconds".
A woman working who lives "down the street" from the incident, summed up the shock and fear that had gripped the neighbourhood, which sits between Holy Cross Cemetery and the Archer Street. She said: "You just don't expect this to happen. You don't expect it at all, but especially not in the middle of the day. Not at the time your kids are coming out of school." She said she had been petrified for her children's safety, adding: "We heard all the shouting, heard yelling out. And then my neighbours said they'd run right past our street."
And an older woman shared the horror at what had happened. She said: "I only found out when kids ran up to my bus to tell us. This used to be a lovely estate. But now in Holy Cross you just don't know. It used to be lovely older people - now you can't get to sleep at night." She said she had lived in the area 52 years.
A few doors up the street from the police cordon, a mum told ChronicleLive how she'd not lived in the area long. "It's a bit too close to home, literally," she said. "It really is."
A North East Ambulance Service spokesperson said: "We were called to an incident at a private address in Wallsend at 2.20pm this afternoon. We dispatched one ambulance crew, two crews from our Hazardous Area Response Team and requested support from Great North Air Ambulance."
ChronicleLive has contacted Northumbria Police for more information.
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