I read the article. I am looking at the picture they used for the article.
For clarity, your parking brake is often (not always especially not on newer cars - especially with the advent of electronic parking brakes) a braided cable.
Your regular car brakes (attached to your brake pedal) are a hydraulically actuated system so the brake lines that were cut were actual brake hoses filled with fluid, not a brake cable.
This is what a cut brake line looks like:
