Britain is increasing police numbers by 40 per cent for Sunday’s London marathon as part of an effort to reassure competitors and spectators after bombs devastated the Boston race on Monday.
One suspect in the Boston bombing was killed in a city suburb on Friday and a manhunt was underway for a second suspect.
Two explosions near the finish line of the Boston race killed three people and injured 176, triggering security scares across the United States and prompting British authorities to review security arrangements ahead of the London event.
The head of the Metropolitan Police’s London marathon operation, Julia Pendry, said on Friday there would be several hundred more officers on the streets than had originally been planned for Sunday’s race.
“We’ve got more search dogs out, we’ve got more officers on high-visibility patrols,” she told reporters gathered outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters at New Scotland Yard, less than two kms from the marathon’s finish line.
The increased policing was intended to reassure the 36,000 runners and the hundreds of thousands of supporters who were expected to line the course as the race wound round Tower Bridge and the Canary Wharf financial district before ending in front of Buckingham Palace, she said.