Public need to having to take
BRITAIN’S top police chief yesterday urged people to be have-a-go heroes and get stuck in if they see officers being attacked.
Cressida Dick said she was “disgusted” by onlookers who instead video assaults on police and post the images on the internet.
She told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: “If you see an officer getting a kicking and you feel able to assist, absolutely I want my public getting involved and we see people getting involved.
“People do. I commend them, I bring them in for a cup of tea, I give them medals for it. I think it’s great. We don’t want people taking crazy risks. We do want people getting involved.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ms Dick said attacks on police were nothing new and she could “remember it when I was a PC, when I was an inspector in south London”.
But speaking of mobile phone footage posted online last month of a woman police officer being floored by a flying kung-fu kick, she said: “I think it’s absolutely awful.
“What we seem to be seeing now is not only police officers being assaulted, but sometimes crowds gathering...a crowd gathering and then some people filming, laughing, joking.
“We’ve seen two or three videos where people have intervened to try and drag the officers away from the person they are needing to arrest. Officers getting assaulted and people thinking that’s funny, putting it on the internet, I think is disgusting.”
She urged people to “look at the circumstances” before pitching in. “If there’s a man pointing a gun at you, we don’t want you running at the man pointing the gun – that would be crazy,” she said.
A Survation poll for the Daily Express published yesterday revealed that 68 per cent of respondents would intervene to help an officer under attack. Ms Dick said: “I think I want to live in a society – and I think I do live in a society – where we have active citizens, where people stand up and say that’s not right, don’t do that, or on occasion, even, if they feel able, get involved and do something physically.”
The man who filmed the kung-fu kick later apologised. Two men have been charged over the incident. Commenting on the wave of violent crime in London, Ms Dick insisted the tide is turning. So far in the capital this year there have been 123 homicides, but Ms Dick said that after three years of gun and knife crime increasing, the rate is now starting to level off and come down.
Figures released by Scotland Yard yesterday showed that in September, October and November there were 176 fewer victims of knife crime with injury aged under 25 than in the same three months in 2017 – a 31 per cent reduction. “After three years of knife crime increasing, gun crime increasing, they are now not just levelling off but beginning to come down,” the Commissioner said. “These aren’t huge changes. I think, however, we are suppressing it.” Ms Dick said this year’s homicides have left her “sickened”.
Last week it was revealed armed officers may soon go on foot patrols in parts of London following outbreaks of gang violence. Some experts fear the sight of police with guns could alienate or provoke communities most blighted by warring drug gangs. Ms Dick said a decision has yet to be made, adding: “We have a history in the Met of working with the consent of our public and doing things that they feel comfortable with.
“Some people are really concerned at what they see or hear as a slip towards more routine armed patrols with firearms. “But we are not an armed force. A relatively small percentage of our officers are armed, and clearly the vast majority of the public are very supportive of the fact that we don’t walk around with firearms all the time.”
123 number of homicides in the capital so far this year 31% fewer knife crime victims under 25 in last 3 months