The six-year-old seriously injured after apparently being pushed by a teenager from an observation platform on the 10th floor of the Tate Modern Museum in London is a French national who was visiting London with his family, the police said on Monday. He is in a "critical state" but "stable" and his days are not in danger, said Scotland Yard in a statement.
The police are still trying to establish the circumstances of the incident and determine why the child was pushed. The victim fell on a fifth floor roof of the museum on Sunday afternoon, and was rescued and transported by helicopter to the hospital. A suspect, a 17-year-old boy, was arrested and detained. He is suspected of "attempted murder", according to the police, who said he did not know the victim.
Treated as an "isolated event"
"It was a really shocking incident and people will naturally look for answers," said investigator John Massey in the statement. "For the moment, we treat it as an isolated event, with no clear or apparent motive, there is no connection between the victim and the arrested man," he added.
The police called for witnesses, including those who would have noticed a man with "inappropriate, suspicious or suspicious" behavior shortly before the events. Nancy Barnfield, a 47-year-old woman on the same floor, remembers hearing a "loud" sound from the fall of the child, then a woman screaming, "Where is my son?" PA press. There was screaming, and a woman was shaking and "crying desperately," Olga Malchevska, a BBC journalist at the museum with her four-year-old son, said.