The Skateboard Hero Who Fought a Terrorist

[Music] i saw my friend down the road shaking looking at me like what the hell is this i was like man this is a terror attack people ran for their lives not just out of instinct but because they were told to so we did a we went from spot to spot spot down at the tape then millennium bridge then sort of i said i'm going home to get food and they went off to borough market a major incident in central london witnesses say a van mounted the pavement on london bridge we started to head the london bridge and on the way i saw someone like not having a good moment armed police have closed the bridge in both directions there also reports of a stabbing attack he was holding himself like this and the people who were surrounding him were kind of like worried as hell the faces were kind of scary like it wasn't uh something normal six people were killed and at least 48 injured by three attackers by then i looked at my right and i said nafio already like with his skateboard on his hands like jumping and hitting terrorists [Music] [Music] he started to escape i think like 10 or 11 for him was a way to escape when he had problems doing whatever he wanted and also mixing with different people i finished the good scene of the skate community that there were people from all backgrounds and i think because of that he had some really nice relationships [Applause] with my friends he knew a lot of people because it's been a long time skating in the same city so you end up knowing everyone when we met inaudible i think that we realized that he skated in the same way he was he was quite a character his style of skating was also like old-school very different from us and i remember a trick that nobody could do like that was impossible he always had a trick that nobody could do it is [Music] he looked like a really like i don't know like a gentleman he saw some guys harassing some girl he tried to defend the girl because he was just like that man he was so brave these guys they showed up at the skate park and they bit him up he didn't like to see injustice [Laughter] for me what described him best is he tried the same trick like 25 times he didn't did it properly any so at the end he broke the ankle properly and it's exactly how ignacio was like he moved to london in 2012 he felt like he was part of an english community it was important to be immersed in the culture he was super happy in london he can be properly himself he was just always at mile end and we were always at maryland the skatepark is a really friendly place so you kind of just assimilate other people into your crew and ignacio is one of the people that we'd always chat to and he joined our group that way so i met matthew in london he was super chill super sweet one of those persons who want to know more instead of talking it's always like asking and being curious about you or what you do with life if he thought that you were having a bad day or anything like that he takes you like sending love your way sort of thing and it says a lot about someone's character i think we met up next to borough market which had like the volleyballs having pits and ignacio did his thing where you know he skated for a little while and then busted out his camera and wanted to stop filming down at the tape then millennium bridge then sort of i said i'm going home to get food and they went off to borough market we started to head to london bridge on the way i saw someone like not having a good moment like he was holding himself like this and the people who were surrounding him were kind of like worried as hell like the faces were kind of scary like it wasn't uh something normal people have described seeing victims being treated on the roadside some with knife a policeman passed me my left running towards the terrorists he got knocked out like straight away like boom they saw that a man was stabbing a girl i approached the person who was needing help you know by then i looked at my right and i said nafio already like with his skateboard on his hands like jumping and hitting the terrorist i started to approach to him he felt like in front of me and he would stop same ones jumped on me like straight away because i was next to him i had a bike here so i kind of threw it and i started to run i saw my friend javi down the road like shaking looking at me like what the hell is this i was like man this is a terrible attack like and we decided to go back to nafio you know by then the tourists went into borrow market and that moment we realized that we could actually make it to ignacio because they went inside by the time we were approaching to him the police came to us like what the hell are you doing here like they told us that we had to run towards one direction which was on the opposite way of where matthew was we tried to go back to him they didn't let us approach i was completely sure that he was alive good morning and welcome to an itv news special program to bring you the latest developments on the terror attack that took place in central london last night six people were killed and at least 48 injured by three attackers who just after 10 o'clock drove a van over london bridge aiming at pedestrians before jumping out and attacking people with knives all three attackers were then shot dead by the police that night was meant to sleep at his sisters and i called him and he didn't reply i call him call him call him i call her and i explain very very softly that he was involved in the terror attack participating where's ignacio that was the question we went hospital by hospital asking for asking for him like no one could tell us anything about [Music] we sort of maintained some optimism that it he might be in hospital or just have lost his phone and all contact but the writing was kind of on the wall and we could kind of see that from the next day on really every second you don't know anything you know that you're closer to the bad news it hadn't been confirmed so the police called 72 hours later they couldn't give any response because they were fully aware five days is it's a long process man [Music] i was positive thinking that okay it but uh now if it's a knife you know and it kills europe we heard about the sad news and still felt like unreal like like him like come on like nothing like pasarum which is better and talked about ignacio and how much we loved him we couldn't believe like so many questions instrumental [Music] in memory of ignacio i'm really sorry that we couldn't save you you gave your life so bravely to save people and you'll always be remembered as a hero i thought at the beginning that the girl who were stopped she for sure got killed fortunately the girl is alive [Music] it was hard man for everybody who knew him because we all knew he was the best guy ever so i had this idea that we were all going to do this memorial skate day for ignacio it was the same route we did the day that we went out skating we kept it purely for that the first spot was the playground down in london bridge which is like this kind of playground with some ledges in it that you know that you're allowed to skate there there was about 30 or 40 of us this is amazing you know like people that you don't know but everyone's just like jamming and everyone was really happy that day you know it's a really positive memorial to him everyone's just like full of like cheek and wit with each other and like you know security guards come eventually and we're explaining what we're doing and some of them are like actually that's really cool i think we went to about six or seven spots all around london bridge he was in our memory for every spot that we were in we were just gonna have as much fun as we could out of respect for the courage that he showed um that we were gonna just commemorate him on that day so we got three boards to commemorate ignacio all of them we basically just took around to the spots that we skate especially to mile end and ask everyone to come and sign it and just give us their messages the idea is at some point i'll put this up at merlin so we can have somewhere that's sort of framed and they can live forever we had all three at the memorial for the week i like where the flowers were but one of them that we gave to ignacio's parents and then the last one we end up taking to the the graveyard upper south bank over the the river there's like the the place where you throw all your old decks so that's where we went and put put the last one for ignacio so he's up there it was just something for us as the skaters and how we met him to really like end the crap that we'd been through on something so positive and now when i think about him it's not he died and borough market and shitty terrorist attack he was a skater and a good mate of ours and he was lost to unfortunate circumstances heroic is [Applause] [Applause] [Music] had he not had his skateboard on him he had probably done the same thing the fact he did have his skateboard on him it meant that skaters all around the world could connect with this guy in in a way they wouldn't have otherwise and the skateboarders who hear this they're like holy this is one of us and we get a connection and a response from people who really care just because they're they're part of the community too now even though i knew that in nothing past i was not believing it inside that he wasn't among us now [Music] once you accept it you start getting another perception no i remember him every day bro and i always think like when i get pissed off at things or i get like in an angry mood i i always think like how ignacio would react towards this how what he would say what what he would tell me if i behave like this and she would be like telling me off not to do that or he would be more like laughing and enjoying what i'm doing you know she told me [Music] decided to put a skate park just in front of my parents house it's super nice and we hear them you know the noise i love it i love it too to go there and to hear the notes [Music] you my [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow

Channel: VICE

Views: 1,692,038

Keywords: Skateboarding, terror, terrorist, terror attack, crime, true crime, London Bridge attack, London, England, London terror attack, Madrid, Spain, Murder, Tribute, Ignacio, Echeverría, Skateboarder, Southbank skate space, hero, local heros, london skate spots, documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short film, movies, VWN, Vice World News, world news, news, yt:cc=on

Id: HgZKoMJAO80

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021