A volunteer who helped police detail the Golders Green attacker has revealed he always has to think about his safety following the recent spate of attacks.
Speaking on GB News Yonathan Elkouby said: “I’m a volunteer of Shomrim Northwest London. So I was in Hendon, and a call came through our radio that there’s somebody walking with a knife on Golders Green Road.
“Obviously, I dropped everything and just came straight down to assist, to detain somebody with a knife. As I arrived, I see the suspect as I’m crossing into Golders Green. I understand there’d been a stabbing around here.
“When I got the call through, I didn’t Fknow the stabbing happened. In fact, I didn’t know until 15 or 20 minutes later we had got all the suspects. I was just a volunteer to tackle someone with a knife. There was somebody walking with a knife, I went out there for that.
“So apparently there’s been one stabbing here, and then there’s further down, Golders Green Road, there’s been another stabbing, and then even further down, just before Hendon, that’s where I arrived on scene and where I actually managed to detain him.
“I arrived. I saw the police making a U-turn and realised if they’re making a U-turn he must be around there and they’d probably just gone past him. I just had that judgment in my mind.
“So I decided to look out where he would be. As you come across, I see the guy. Now, he happens to be right in front of me in my car, so he tried to avoid me and go to the side.
“I had a split-second decision to actually use my car to block him. So I kind of went to opposite traffic just to block the road, and he basically ended up holding back. And that kind of deters him going back towards the police.
“I came out and assisted the police with taking him down and detaining him. He did have a knife. From the moment I arrived until I managed to have hands on him, it took quite a few minutes.
“Remember, you’ve got a guy walking around with a knife. The police are trying to Taser him and it’s not working on him. All you have is your hands and your body because if the Taser is not working, or you don’t know how long it’s going to take till it works.
“So there were two police officers, myself, another colleague of mine that was arriving from another side, and there was another fellow I saw assisting. He’s basically going towards someone with a knife, and then he’s going towards the police.
“And the more he’s trying to go away from you, you’re trying to get closer to him, to try and take him down. And then eventually he turned around toward me, and with his knife, I looked at him and started walking and running toward me.
“I try to go back because, you know, I’m not protected.
“I couldn’t record anything he said. My head was thinking, ‘How am I protecting the community? How am I protecting what’s around me and make sure that he’s unable to do anything?’
“I think he eventually collapsed because of the taser, right? And at that point the police and myself, another person, actually, and another two people, we jumped onto him, kind of trying to hold him down, but he still had his knife under himself in his hand. He basically kept it under himself.
“At that moment, I didn’t actually realise he still had the knife in his hand, and only once I was actually holding his legs, I saw that he still had the knife in his hand. The police were actually trying to grab it out of his hand and they did, thankfully.
“I thank God that I was able to hold myself together and make the right decision. I don’t think I was scared.
“After the event, I thought that was okay. Then actually, I thought maybe I’m not okay. I did have some time to relax and record and actually see what happened.
“I mean, it could have been a lot worse, although it’s very unfortunate. Only later on I found out that it was a stabbing. The first thing that came to my mind is, are they okay? Are they alive? What condition are they in? And I was quite worried about that, to be honest.
“Today I dropped everything, I jumped in my car and came down here to help the community.
“It’s 24 hours. [My radio] stays next to me. It stays on me all the time, and at night, it stays next to my bed.
“We’re active. We’re basically volunteers protecting the community. We’re not really supposed to be living this way, to think that, ‘Oh, I’m not I’m not safe’.
“I just always have to think about what’s behind my back and who’s coming walking behind me, what’s around me, to be honest. We prefer living as a free people like in terms of, you know, walking around without having that worry.
“Unfortunately, today, it showed that it’s not as safe as we thought it could be. Obviously, it’s been getting worse recently, we know that.
“I’m still on duty, non stop. I will always stand to protect my community.”
