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As holiday shopping season opens, a scare on London’s Oxford Street 

November 24, 2017 at 4:09 p.m. EST
Here is what you need to know about the panic and police response at the Oxford Street intersection and subway stop in the heart of London Nov. 24. (Video: The Washington Post)

During a fretful hour Friday afternoon, Londoners braced for confirmation of yet another attack, something that has become familiar in the British capital this year. Amid rumors of gunshots, shoppers fled down Oxford Street, one of the busiest retail districts in the world on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

In the end, it appeared to be a false alarm. London’s Metropolitan Police said they could not find evidence of shots fired or casualties.

The police said that at 4:38 p.m., they received several calls reporting gunshots in the area.

"Given the nature of the info received we responded as if the incident was terrorism," the police said in a tweet. Armed officers poured into the crowded Oxford Street area in the heart of London and ordered people to take shelter.

The scenes in the ensuing hour were ones of panic. Video from Oxford Circus uploaded to social media showed pedestrians fleeing the area as armed police officers arrived. Many people jumped on Twitter and other social media sites to say that they were holed up in nearby department stores and offices.

Emily Hooper, 39, was one of hundreds of people who work in the area whose offices were in lockdown as police scrambled to figure out what was happening.

“We heard so many different stories — it’s quite frustrating,” she said minutes after she was let out of her building. She said there were rumors of gunshots and of a truck mowing down pedestrians. “It’s just madness that people say that kind of stuff when it’s not actually happening. It fuels the frenzy and fear and stampede that follows.”

After a little more than an hour of instructing Londoners to stay inside, police gave an all-clear signal.

Several attacks this year have put England's capital city on edge. In September, a homemade bomb was detonated on a subway car at the Parsons Green station, injuring nearly 30 commuters. Three vehicle attacks, one in March and two in June, left 12 people dead and dozens of others wounded.

Minutes after the police lifted the cordon around Oxford Street, normal life resumed. The parked double-decker buses started up their engines. Some storekeepers opened their shops. Thousands of people carrying shopping bags flooded back into the area to seek out Black Friday sales.

But there were still signs of the panic that gripped the area earlier. At H&M, for instance, the doors remained locked as staff swept up broken glass that covered the floor. Another store also remained closed as staff cleaned up plant vases that had been smashed. Outside, a pair of shoes was abandoned on the sidewalk.

Hooper acknowledged that the city felt jittery even before the incident Friday. But at the end of the day, she said, Londoners just get on with daily life: “You just have to keep carrying on. You can’t not live.”

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