"In the early hours of September 28, 2023, an act of violence and vandalism shocked the U.K. The next day, news of the attack dominated social media and mainstream news coverage, leading to outpourings of grief, fury at its senselessness, and pilgrimages to the remote stretch of countryside where the crime took place."
The introduction of this article is very powerful. The author sets us up, and we assume that the act of violence would be against humans, and maybe a few deaths or injuries. And, it continues by detailing the outrage that took place. From here, readers could assume it could have been a hate crime, or the death of some high-profile celebrity. However, the author turns all that on to its head when it's revealed that, in fact, the crime was that a tree was illegally cut down.