Eight wounds is ‘the norm’ for stabbing victims
STAB victims suffer seven or eight wounds in a single attack - which has become the norm, said a top detective yesterday.
Superintendent Darius Hemmatpour of the Metropolitan Police’s Violent Crime Taskforce, said thugs are attacking rivals with “such hatred and venom” they are more likely to kill them.
He also warned that spats on social media fuel gang tensions by “riling” people. He told the Police Superintendents’ Association conference in Stratford-upon-Avon that there had been fewer knife attacks.
The number of under-25s injured in stabbing incidents fell almost 20 per cent between August 2018 and August 2019, Supt Hemmatpour said.
But he added: “Stabbings now are fuelled with hatred. Five years ago you would see two to three knife wounds. Now there are seven to eight. Pre-social media and smartphones, if you were in a gang, the only way of fronting up people was face-to-face.
“You might have a spat, there might be a punch, but that might be it.
“What social media has done is antagonise people, because you can really rile people up.”
Supt Hemmatpour said youngsters were arming themselves with Rambo knives, “tornado” folding knives and highly serrated zombie knives. He added: “I’m not sure killing someone is in the thought process, to say ‘that was my end-game’. I think it is done with such hatred and venom, the reality and the severity of those stab wounds lend themself to homicide.”
“I don’t think they went out with an intent to kill. It is just the ferocity that lends itself to homicide.
“Social media has a part to play, in terms of antagonising, fuelling, territorial or drug-related gang tension.”