LONDON NOW DEADLIER THAN NEW YORK

Capital has more murders in month for first time in modern history

THE streets of London are now more deadly than New York, with the capital recording a higher murder rate for the first time in modern history in February.

The past two months of bloodshed in London have overtaken New York’s murder rate, official police figures show, as Scotland Yard battles a 38 per cent surge in killings since 2014.

Fifteen people were killed in London in February, compared to 14 in New York.

And the trend looks set to continue, with 22 killings in London in March – one more than the city on the other side of the Atlantic, where urban violence has long been prevalent.

The figures emerged as Scotland Yard was called to yet another stabbing in the early hours of yesterday.

Devoy Stapleton, 20, was knifed to death on his way home from a night out at 1am in Wandsworth. It is the 31st fatal stabbing in London this year.

The surge in killings comes as rates of rape, robbery, and violent offences in London have already eclipsed those in New York.

While both London and New York have populations of around 8 million, Office of National Statistics figures published in October suggest you are almost six times more likely to be burgled in the British capital than in the US city, and one and a half times more likely to be robbed. London also has almost three times the number of reported rapes, but until February this year the murder rate in New York remained higher.

The total number of London murders, even excluding victims of terrorism, has risen by 38 per cent since 2014. In contrast, the number of murders in New York have fallen by 87 per cent since its 1990s peak.

Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick says social media sites could be to blame, claiming that disputes on online messaging boards and video sites were escalating to murder ‘within minutes’.

‘There’s definitely something about the impact of social media in terms of people being able to go from slightly angry with each other to “fight” very quickly,’ she said.

She also wants to increase the risk of being a victim of violent use of stop and search, which fell crime in London than New York, by up to two thirds when Theresa which is pretty staggering. There is May was Home Secretary. no way in which the police can be

Scotland Yard (32,000 officers) expected to deal with a bigger population and the New York City Police Department (40,000) both have budgets of £3 billion a year.

But the NYPD has introduced a zero tolerance approach to lowlevel crime and has flooded problem areas with patrols.

Critics say Scotland Yard has done the exact opposite in the face of budget cuts, as it has ‘screened out’ a number of low-level offences and moved officers from neighbourhood policing to pursue historic child abuse inquiries, terrorism and other high-profile inquiries.

David Green, of the think-tank Civitas, said: ‘There is now a higher in London and a lot of gang activity if you keep cutting budgets and reducing officer numbers.

‘If you look at cities like New York and Boston, they have poured a lot of resources into diverting people from gang activity and putting more officers on the street.

‘We have reduced visible policing – it’s the exact opposite.’ A spokesman for London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: ‘Our city remains one of the safest in the world thanks to the hard work and dedication of our police officers, but Sadiq wants

‘Police can’t cope if you keep cutting budgets’

it to be even safer and is working hard to bring an end to this violent scourge.’

A Met Police spokesman said: ‘One murder is one too many, and we are working hard with our partners to understand the increase and what we can all do to prevent these tragedies from happening in the first place.’