Labour MP for Bentley and Spen, Jo Cox, has passed away after being repeatedly shot at and stabbed in her constituency on Thursday.
Cox was shot multiple times by the assailant- tentatively identified as 52 year old Thomas Mair- and subsequently stabbed whilst lying on the ground.
Cox, 41, was carted to the Leeds General Infirmary after the attack. Initial reports placed her in critical condition, but she has since passed on.
The suspected assailant was arrested at a nearby market.
Eyewitnesses describe a brutal attack by a man in his fifties on the Batley and Spen MP, armed with a gun and a knife
Cafe owner Clarke Rothwell, who witnessed the attack, told the BBC he heard a “loud popping noise that sounded like a balloon burst – a loud balloon”
“When I looked round there’s a man stood there in his 50s with a white baseball cap on and a jacket with a gun, an old fashioned looking gun in his hand,” he elaborated.
“He shot this lady once and then he shot her again, he fell to the floor, leant over shot her once more in the face area.
“Somebody tried to grab him, wrestling with him and then he wielded a knife, like a hunting knife, just started lunging at her with a knife half a dozen times. People were screaming and running from the area”.
Another eyewitness told the British broadcaster Cox was left lying and bleeding on the pavement after the incident.
Cox, who has been in parliament for just over a year, is married with two children. She graduated from Cambridge University in 1995 – the first from her family to do so – and worked as an aid worker in war torn countries for years before entering politics.
“The whole of the Labour Party and Labour family – and indeed the whole country – will be in shock at the horrific murder of Jo Cox today,” Labour said in a statement.
“Jo died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve.”
Police are reportedly investigating reports Mair shouted ‘Britain first’ before stabbing Cox. ‘Britain First’ is the name of a far right British party, and the utterance could speak to the killer’s motives.