Last Updated on August 29, 2019
Dramatic footage posted on Twitter shows the moment when dozens of British police officers swarmed the scene of a knife fight in Woolwich, London, yesterday.
The incident happened just after 6 PM yesterday, when “people with knives” started fighting outside Lamport Close in Woolwich, with the police quick to respond.
https://twitter.com/SlingUK/status/1166783609828761606
Police can be seen filing out of vans and cars, running past The Greyhound Pub on Woolwich Church Street, heading down Kingsman Parade towards the incident.
Another view, Kingsman Parade #Woolwich Police choppers everything pic.twitter.com/cuUXRqV9Tq
— Sam (@SlingUK) August 28, 2019
The Metropolitan Police released a statement on Twitter about the fight:
We were called at 6pm to a report of a fight and people with knives in Lamport Close #SE18. Officers attended and found a large group of hostile youths, 4 of whom were arrested for affray… Extra officers were called and a cordon was in place for a short time. No injuries from reported fight. Officers have now left the scene.
The Met Police then issued a Section 60 order at 7PM for 12 hours for the SE18 postcode. As explained on their website, this gives them certain temporary powers:
Section 60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (s.60) gives police the right to search people in a defined area during a specific time period when they believe, with good reason, that: serious violence will take place and it is necessary to use this power to prevent such violence; or that a person is carrying a dangerous object or offensive weapon; or that an incident involving serious violence has taken place and a dangerous instrument or offensive weapon used in the incident is being carried in the locality.
The spike in street crime in the U.K. since the early 2000s has been jarring and precipitous, with the London crime rate overtaking that of New York City in 2018. Despite the assurances of London mayor Sadiq Khan that violent attacks and acts of terrorism are just “part and parcel” of living in a large city, there is a major panic about the crime in the U.K.
After falling for a decade, knife crime is on the rise in Britain. There were 285 knife homicides in England and Wales from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, the highest number since comparable records began in 1946.
The number of people admitted to hospitals with blade injuries rose 8 percent from the year before.
Knives are the most common weapon used in slayings in the U.K., where guns are tightly restricted. About 40 percent of murder victims were stabbed to death last year, while only 4 percent were shot.
Just this week, footage of a vicious knife attack on a Gloucester street was leaked to Twitter, showing a “deranged man brandishing a large kitchen knife… chasing another man, whose shirt is soaked in blood… [then stabbing him] repeatedly as multiple passersby attempt to restrain him.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
