London crime wave: 6 teens stabbed within 90 minutes

Surge of violence lifts murder rate above New York City’s

LONDON – Shocked residents of the British capital are calling for an end to a surge in violence that now includes six teenagers stabbed in the space of 90 minutes.

The incidents came days after London’s murder rate surpassed New York City’s for the first time. At least 55 people have been killed in London in 2018, more than 30 of them in stabbings.

Police in the Tower Hamlets borough of east London said Thursday that two 15-year-old boys were taken to the hospital with serious injuries after they were stabbed about 6 p.m. local time Thursday.

A 16-year-old who was treated for minor knife injuries was arrested for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, and another male suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said.

In a separate incident in the Newham borough of east London, police said three juveniles were arrested after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed. The victim is in serious but stable condition.

Elsewhere in the city, a teenager was taken to the hospital when he was stabbed in Ealing Broadway, west London, and a 15-year-old boy was stabbed in Westferry, east London, but suffered no serious injury.

Also Thursday, a crowd gathered at a train station in the east London area of Hackney, near the scene of the fatal stabbing Wednesday of Israel Ogunsola, 18, to commemorate victims of violence.

Local youth worker Janette Collins, 58, told the London Evening Standard: “We need to stop this. Everybody keeps asking the same question, but the answers are in the young people ... and we are here to talk to young people and try to stop the violence.”

David Lammy, the opposition Labour Party’s member of Parliament for the Tottenham area of north London, accused Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, both of the ruling Conservative Party, of failing to act on the rising murder rate.

He said four young people have been killed in his area since Christmas.

The number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by 21,500 as part of a government drive to cut spending since May became home secretary in 2010.

May became prime minister in 2016. Lammy said there was “no single cause” of the violence, but he was concerned that gangs were getting involved in turf wars over drug trafficking.

Cressida Dick, commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Service, told the Evening Standard on Thursday that a new task force of 120 officers would target the most violent criminals to take them off the streets “for any crime.”