The Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is inviting the Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd, London MPs, council leaders and London Assembly members to a City Hall summit about tackling violent crime on the city’s streets.
A briefing at the mayor’s offices, pictured, by the Mayor and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick will cover what action’s being taken against the spate of violence.
Sadiq Khan, said: “I’m angered and heartbroken by the number of violent deaths on our streets and know other Londoners, including politicians, share the same feelings – and the same determination to end this violent scourge. Keeping Londoners safe is my top priority and I want to reassure everyone that we’re doing everything we can. We need to all work together to tackle the rise in violent crime. That’s why it’s more important than ever to find consensus where possible and work together to make sure every Londoner, regardless of age or background, feels safe in our great city. It’s what Londoners deserve.”
Meanwhile the Met has announced a new Violent Crime Task Force of full-time, selected, ring-fenced police officers, who will solely focus on violent crime, weapon-enabled crime and serious crime. The force says that the team will use a full range of tactics to identify, target and arrest offenders, and leave a legacy of community impact in the boroughs they are deployed to. These will include covert and overt tactics targeting street level offenders as well as those who feed crime, the Met adds. The Met has previously been running Operation Sceptre with two teams in north and south London who focus alternately between knife crime, violent crime and moped-enabled crime.
And National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair Sara Thornton has blogged that a ‘long term strategy to tackle the roots of violent crime, learning lessons from the success of Scotland’s public health approach, is desperately needed’. See more at the NPCC website.
