HEROES AND VILLAINS
By Mark Zuehlke
LoyauKennett
As off-duty British soldier Lee Rigby lay dying outside the south London Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich on May 22, 2013, Ingrid Loyau-Kennett heroically confronted his killers
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48-year-old teacher and translator, Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was returning home by bus to Helston, Cornwall, after visiting her two children in London when she saw a blood-drenched man lying on the street. Thinking the man had been struck by a vehicle, and having taken first-aid training in her role as a Brownie leader, Loyau-Kennett raced to ATTEMPTING his side. “I took his arm TO DEFUSE THE to feel his pulse,” she said CHAOTIC AND later. “There was blood on DANGEROUS the pavement…and blood was pouring out of him.” SITUATION, Suddenly an agitated LOYAU-KENNETT man appeared and shouted CONTINUED TO for her to get away from CALMLY ENGAGE the injured man. “I looked up and I could see red BOTH KILLERS. hands, a bloodied revolver, bloodied meat cleaver and a butcher’s knife. ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘this is bad.’” A second armed man was pacing in the background while a crowd gathered. Some people were shooting video on their mobile phones. Loyau-Kennett saw women and children apparently oblivious to the danger they were in.
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“I had better start talking to him before he attacks somebody else,” she decided and asked if he was responsible for the attack. The man with the bloodied weapons admitted he was. She then asked him why. He replied it was because the soldier “killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan.” Attempting to defuse the chaotic and dangerous situation, Loyau-Kennett continued to calmly engage both killers in a reasoned manner. At one point, she turned to the second man who was still pacing nervously and asked “if he wanted to sit down and give me what he had in his hands.” The man refused to surrender his weapon. When armed police arrived on the scene approximately 14 minutes after the first 999 call was filed at 14:20, the two men charged them. Police fired eight shots that left both men wounded and then took them into custody. Loyau-Kennett was quickly hailed as the “Angel of Woolwich” for her actions. The British government presented Loyau-Kennett with a Pride of Britain Award and—being of French birth—France recognized her with a bravery medal. But her selfless action ultimately took a tragic toll. By the 2016 anniversary of the murder, Loyau-Kennett reported being debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder that had left her unemployed, suffering anxiety attacks, and afraid to leave her home. “I should have been a coward,” she said. L
MARCH/APRIL 2017 > legionmagazine.com
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