Yard: We’ve run out of detectives after latest knife spree
SCOTLAND Yard admitted yesterday it had run out of detectives to investigate murders as six teenagers were knifed in just 90 minutes on another blood-soaked night in the capital.
The force was forced to call in neighbouring City of London Police to carry out a murder inquiry this week.
It took the highly unusual action as the capital’s soaring murder toll hit 55.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick admitted it was a ‘very worrying’ time as she was forced to deny her officers had ‘lost control of crime’.
She said: ‘Over the last three months and in particular in the last several days, we have had a unusual spike in horrible homicides, ghastly events, that have taken people’s lives and devastated other people’s lives.
‘We work really closely with the City of London Police. We frequently help them with serious crime. Occasionally they help us.’
It came after another evening of attacks when six teenagers – the youngest just 13 – were stabbed in separate attacks between 5.30pm and 7pm on Thursday.
The violence continued last night as two more young males were stabbed at a shopping centre in Croydon, South London.
Following criticism that he had not visited the bereaved families of those killed this week, London Mayor Sadiq Khan yesterday visited the scene where Tanesha Melbourne, 17, was shot dead on Monday, after it emerged police had arrested a 30-year-old man on suspicion of her murder.
A group of 47 MPs also sent a letter to Downing Street calling for action, accusing the Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd of being ‘absent while violent crime surges’ across the country.
Yesterday Miss Dick was forced to deny police had ‘lost control of crime in London’. She said: ‘It is not this enormous epidemic that people are talking about.
‘There are plenty of us who can go about our business pretty certain that we are not going to be affected by this knife crime.’
Bus drivers, train staff, cabbies and security guards are being trained to spot children being used as drug mules.
The Home Office has distributed posters highlighting signs that youngsters were being exploited by gangs to run Class A narcotics and money around Britain. The campaign focuses on ‘county lines’ networks, where criminals deploy juveniles as ‘couriers’ to carry drugs and cash to market towns and seaside resorts.