Man ‘Strapped Up in Gasoline Cylinders’ and Chucking TVs Arrested After Standoff in London

UPDATE:

(AP) — Police say they’ve arrested the suspect at the center of a three-hour siege which shut down part a busy part of central London.

Sky News

The capital’s Metropolitan Police say the 49-year-old man is now in police custody and that searches of the building are ongoing.

One eyewitness claimed Friday that the man burst into the office of a training company saying he was ready to blow himself up.

Original story below.

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Sky News

LONDON (The Blaze/AP) — Armed and masked police were at the scene of a disturbance in central London Friday where an eyewitness reported that a mentally unstable man had walked into her office threatening to blow himself up.

Scotland Yard said in a statement that police were called to Tottenham Court Road, a busy central London avenue, just before noon and had sent a negotiator to the site. Office supplies, including computer monitors, were being thrown from the building’s fifth floor window. The Huffington Post’s UK division posted video of that (content warning for some language)

“It’s unclear if other people (are) in the building,” police said in a statement.

The Huffington Post, whose offices are just off Tottenham Court Road, said that its building was among those evacuated and quoted an eyewitness as saying that a man had walked into her office “strapped up in gasoline cylinders.”

“Basically he threatened to blow up the office,” Abby Baafi, 27, told the news website:

“He said he doesn’t care about his life, he doesn’t care about anything, he’s going to blow up everybody.”

Baafi, whom The Huffington Post identified as an employee of training company Advantage, said she recognized the man as a former customer.

“He’s not quite stable, not mentally stable,” she said.

A telephone message left with Advantage wasn’t immediately returned.

Sky News

Reporters on the scene say the man has been identified as 50-year-old Michael Green who may have a grudge against someone in the office building:

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said she saw heavily armed policemen in balaclavas taking up positions within the cordoned-off area around Tottenham Court Road.

Police have said they aren’t treating the incident as terror-related.

This is a breaking story. Updates will be added.