British lawmaker dies after stabbing

David Amess, the British lawmaker killed in a knife crime on Friday, had asked a question in Parliament in this March about how to stop “senseless murders” with blades. 

In the House of Commons, Amess addressed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and said:

Less than two weeks later, he raised the issue again, saying, “I raised the issue of knife crime in the Chamber earlier this month and was told by the Prime Minister that we have more than 6,000 ‘of our target extra 20,000 police already recruited.’ I hope that Essex police recruit enough police officers to stop any more violent crime.”

A sharp object — including a knife — is the most common murder weapon in England and Wales, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. 

In the year ending March 2020, there were 275 homicides by this method, “an increase of 15 offenses (up 6%) compared with the previous year and the second highest annual figure since 1946,” according to the February 2021 report. 

More than one-third (40%) of the 600 homicides in the year to March 2021 were by knife or other sharp instrument, the ONS reported.

At least 238 people were killed in England and Wales with a knife or another sharp instrument in the year ending March 2021, down from 250 in the 12 months before that, the ONS reported in July. 

That fall included several periods of coronavirus-related lockdown, the statistics agency noted. 

More than one-third (40%) of the 600 homicides in the year to March 2021 were by knife or other sharp instrument, the ONS reported.

Rev. Jeff Woolnough, a priest at St. Peter's Parish in Leigh-on-Sea, said he feels "totally numb" following British lawmaker David Amess' death after being stabbed at a constituency meeting.

Woolnough said Amess was a practicing Catholic and called him "generous, good-humored, caring, passionate about people."

"He's totally unique. One of the greatest guys, seriously, that I've ever worked with, and I mean that," he said.

Woolnough's parish will have a mass at 6 p.m. local time, he said.

"We will have silence because we need to be quiet now. We just need to reflect on this terrible thing and pray for Julie, his wife, and his family, and for all members of Parliament," Woolnough said.

British lawmaker Sir David Amess, who died after he was stabbed on Friday, was "not a man who voiced extremist opinions," CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.

The incident marks the second murder of a sitting British lawmaker in five years, after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed in her constituency in 2016.

Conservative MP Sir David Amess died Friday after he was stabbed several times at a constituency meeting in his Essex district.

Amess's stabbing is the second murder of a sitting British lawmaker in five years, after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed in her constituency in 2016.

In a book he wrote last year about being a Member of Parliament, Amess said that Cox's murder was "totally unexpected" and that the event had changed the way MPs interact with members of the public, particularly in relation to constituency surgeries.

"These increasing attacks have rather spoilt the great British tradition of the people openly meeting their elected politicians," he wrote in "Ayes & Ears."

At least two former UK prime ministers have reacted to news of Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) David Amess's killing Friday.

David Cameron, who served as prime minister from 2010 until 2016, called the news "devastating, horrific & tragic."

"He was the most committed MP you could ever hope to meet," Cameron said.

Gordon Brown, who served as prime minister before Cameron from 2007 until 2010, offered his condolences to Amass's friends and family.

Theresa May, who served as prime minister from 2016 until 2019, called the stabbing "heartbreaking" and described Amess as a "decent man and respected Parliamentarian."

Former prime minister Tony Blair, who served in the role from 1997 to 2007, said he was “shocked and horrified” by the murder of Amess.

“David and I came into Parliament together in 1983,” he said in a statement.

“Though on opposite political sides I always found him a courteous, decent and thoroughly likeable colleague who was respected across the House," he said.

“This is a terrible and sad day for our democracy," he added.

David Garston, a local Conservative councillor of Southend West in Essex, said Sir David Amess was an “irreplaceable” constituency MP whose approachability left him “vulnerable.”

The councillor said that when Sir David came to his ward, “you couldn’t get very far because he’d stop every hundred yards to talk to somebody.”

He said: “It was always very slow with Sir David but he’s paid the price for being so easily got at unfortunately and I just think it’s dreadful.

“The community have lost a really good MP who cared deeply for them and he’ll be a very, very hard act to follow. To find an MP like Sir David, who didn’t think about ministerial position – he wasn’t interested, he was a community man – I would say he’s irreplaceable," he added.

Amess,a Member of Parliament who represented Southend West in Essex, was stabbed at around midday local time by a man who walked into a meeting with voters from his electoral district being held in a Methodist Church, a witness at the scene told Reuters. He was treated by emergency services, but died at the scene, police said.

British Conservative lawmaker David Amess has died after being stabbed multiple times at a constituency meeting east of London.

Amess, 69, who represents Southend West in Essex, was stabbed at around midday by a man who walked into a meeting with voters from his electoral district being held in a Methodist Church, a witness at the scene told Reuters.

He has been an active lawmaker in UK parliament, sponsoring bills including the Abortion (Amendment) Bill (1996-7), the Protection Against Cruel Tethering Act (1988) and the Warm Homes Bill, which passed into law in December 2000 as the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act, according to his website.

He was one of the longest-serving members of parliament, first elected to represent Basildon in 1983. He then stood for election in Southend West in 1997 and was knighted in 2015’s New Year’s Honours List for his political and public service.

Amess supported Brexit ahead of the 2016 EU referendum. His website lists animal welfare and abortion rights as his main interests.

The deadly stabbing of Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Sir David Amess is the second murder of a sitting British lawmaker in five years, after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed in her constituency in 2016.

The latest stabbing brings back "the pain, the loss, but also how much love the public gave us," Cox's husband, Brendan Cox, tweeted after Amess's killing.