A heroic bystander filmed fighting off a Sudanese migrant as he tried to behead his victim on the streets of the United Kingdom has been praised, with a fundraiser set up to buy him a drink.
Matt McKiernan, 32, has come forward as the man filmed swinging an Irish wooden hurling stick as he defends a stranger during Monday night’s shocking attacks on a street in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Graphic video showed the knifeman, an unidentified Sudanese migrant, pinning his victim to the ground before stabbing him several times.
“He’s trying to cut his head off,” a witness screams, as he moves the knife in a sawing motion while holding his fist up.
McKiernan was in the car with a friend on the way to a gas station when they came across the horrific sight.
He said his friend was trained in Brazilian jujitsu and approached the pair first to separate them.
“As he got closer, he saw the knife. It looked to be a serrated steak knife but with a broken handle,” McKiernan told the Daily Mail.
“The attacker was by now shouting, and he said, ‘I’m going to kill him, Wallahi [I swear by Allah], he’s dead.’ And then he stabbed him in the eye,” McKiernan continued.
Dramatic video first shared on social media showed a man identified as McKiernan bashing the knifeman in the head with a long wooden stick used for hurling, a traditional Irish sport that has similar elements to lacrosse and field hockey.
“I’d taken my son to hurling practice earlier that evening and so I’d got out of the car, gone to the [trunk] and grabbed his hurling stick. Instinct took over and I ran over and I smashed this guy over the head with the hurling stick. Right on the flat side, about three times. As hard as I could,” he said.
With the help of his friend Andre, McKiernan was able to force the knifeman to drop his weapon and back away, before police and armed tactical support arrived on the scene.
A GoFundMe, set up to buy McKiernan “a pint,” has already raised more than $9,000.
“I could only bear to watch two or three seconds of the video. I live just 30 minutes away. I just thought this guy deserves something for his bravery, so I just got on it as soon as possible,” Niall Donnan, who set up the GoFundMe, told the Metro.
Monday night’s attacker is believed to have traveled from Sudan to Paris and then Paris to Dublin, before taking a bus to Belfast in February 2023, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher of the Police Service of Northern Ireland told a press conference Tuesday.
One in the United Kingdom, he immediately claimed asylum and was granted leave to remain in the UK in September 2023, lasting for five years.
He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after the horrific attack.
His victim, described as a man in his 40s, was rushed to a nearby hospital in a critical condition with “significan” eye injuries and wounds to his face, neck and back, according to police.
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