A 41-year-old, mother of two and Labour Member of Parliament, Jo Cox was yesterday shot and killed in an attack in West Yorkshire.
According to local media, Cox was shot three times and stabbed just before 1pm in Birstall in her Batley & Spen constituency, and she was pronounced dead around an hour later, leaving her husband Brendan and two young children, aged 3 and 5.
Yorkshire Police are reported to have arrested West have arrested a 52-year-old man, named locally as Thomas Mair.
“Jo Cox was a former student of Heckmondwike Grammar School and she is remembered very fondly here as an exceptionally capable and popular student. She was head girl and went on to Pembroke College, Cambridge and continued to make an impact everywhere she went,” Mike Cook, headteacher at Heckmondwike Grammar School said in a tribute.
Local Clarke Rothwell told the BBC there were screams of a woman.“I turned around to look what the noise were, and I heard a woman screaming. Then a guy was bent over a woman – I could see her legs sticking out – with what looked like a gun in his hand.”
“He then proceeded to shoot her again on the floor. The words I heard him say were “Britain first”, or “put Britain first”. I can’t say exactly which it was, but definitely “Britain first” was what he said. What he shouted. He shouted it at least twice.
But a shopkeeper said that there was nobody who shouted that Britain first” as cox was being killed.“Please not that I did not tackle the gunmen, and no one shouted Britain first at any time,” read the writings on a piece of paper.