Posted on 05/29/2008 4:47:15 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
The most common knife used in teenage stabbings is taken from the kitchen, Sir Ian Blair has said.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner unveiled some of the deadly weapons seized during a two-week blitz on knife-carrying criminals at New Scotland Yard.
Sir Ian revealed that the majority of those weapons discovered on the streets of the capital were ordinary domestic knives.
He said more than 4,000 operations have been undertaken by his officers using arch metal detectors and handheld scanners.
As a result, more than 200 people have been arrested and almost 200 weapons have been seized.
Speaking hours after this year's teenage death toll in London reached 15, Sir Ian said youth violence has reached an unacceptable level.
More... Gruesome ad campaign showing bloody stab victims launched by Government to curb knife crime
He said: "The Met has stepped up its operations. With the support of the community, we have put search arches in place and in the last two weeks carried out more than 4,000 stop and search operations with more than 200 arrests and nearly 200 weapons seized.
"You are now more likely to be stopped and searched. If you are stopped and searched, you will be arrested if you are carrying a knife. If you are arrested you are likely to be prosecuted.
"To parents it is tough-love time. In addition to conversations about drink, drugs and relationships there are now conversations about knives.
200 knives have been seized by the police during Operation Blunt 2
"The most common knife involved in these deaths is a knife from the kitchen and we must have conversations about knife crime with teenagers."
In a report to the Metropolitan Police Authority today, Sir Ian said Operation Blunt, the name given to the anti-knife blitz, is targeting both where weapons are used and where those who use them live.
Sir Ian said officers have been deployed on 185 priority schools and colleges and each of the 59 units for excluded pupils across London. He revealed that the campaign will cost the Met up to £1million this year.
He said: "It is of critical importance that young people understand that carrying a knife is not cool and that choosing to carry a knife puts a young person at high risk of killing someone else, of being injured themselves and of going to prison.
"Ultimately, the aim is to encourage not only those whom young people respect and listen to to champion this approach, but also to find champions among young people themselves."
Operation Blunt is under way in every one of the 32 London boroughs, but extra resources are being sent to the 10 worst-hit areas including Lambeth, Southwark and Croydon.
Kit Malthouse, London deputy mayor responsible for crime, said he was "extremely pleased" with the police action.
He admitted increased stop-and-search operations could be controversial but he said officers had behaved "sensitively".
He said: "Some people out there oppose this type of operation but they come with no other type of solution.
"It is incumbent on us to recognise that every one of these knives recovered represents a tragedy averted and a life saved."
Kitchen knives are the most common weapons seized under the initiative
Mr Malthouse said that with every teenage death "a little bit of London dies too".
Cindy Butts, deputy chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said Londoners must stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the police.
She said: "The black community supports Operation Blunt. What these communities want is increased stop and search.
"What they do not want is for police officers to go out on fishing expeditions where they cast their nets wide and see what they get back."
Ms Butts said the operation targeted places where knives were most likely to be carried and used. Officers deployed with metal detector arches and hand-held scanners targeted 10 London boroughs, including Southwark, Lambeth and Croydon.
She said: "It's important to emphasise that when the police get involved it is already too late."
At last....The government will take all our knives and we can gnaw on our steak like cavemen!!
That looks like something out a SNL skit.
I hate buttering my toast with a spoon. So messy.
Guns, knives, batons (sticks,) pens & pencils, karate lessons. Ban all forms of self-defense. It’s for their own good..
I bet that by noon today, some damn Senator will propose legislation to ban “semiautomatic” electric carving knives.
What about the pointed stick?
Can we devise regulations that require manufacturers to design kitchen knives so that they can’t be used to stab people? Maybe if we required the points to be blunt... And made it illegal to modify them to make them pointy.
I thought it read, "Kitchen knives most common stabbing weapon as police reveal haul of 200 weapons seized in blintz ". Phewww, that could have spelled trouble for the famished.
“200 weapons have been seized”
Must be difficult to cook in those homes. Might have to settle on frozen dinners.
It’s about high time the Government protect us and regulate kitchen knives!!!
REGULATE KITCHEN KNIVES!!!!
How about hedge-trimmers?
Its called a quarterstaff and they were once quite popular in England. perhaps its time to start a new business.
They can have my sharp knife when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Look out, England - the Nanny Stater MPs are about to ban kitchen knives as well as other weapons you might use to defend yourself from murderers and other criminals.
Let us know how not being able to defend yourselves is workin’ out for you!!
I knew there was an subliminal message in that ditty.... "Hide your knives AND SPOONS".
Looks like a photo after a prison sweep of the cells. The Brits are living in their own prison.
Scissors,razors and garden shears..you’re next!
> The most common knife used in teenage stabbings is taken from the kitchen, Sir Ian Blair has said.
This is entirely consistent with what our NZ Guardian Angels Patrols see in our streets. Lots of kitchen knives. Also short handsaws of the sort used to say gib-board (I think you lot call it wallboard or gyproc?) Plenty of improvised weapons, too.
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