By Tony O’Riley-
London is “on track” to suffer the worst year for teenage killings in more than a decade, if youth violence continues at the current rate, the UK’s biggest police force has warned.
Scotland Yard chief, Commander Alex Murray, (pictured)the Met’s lead for violence, has today issued an urgent call for calm to prevent more young lives being lost as Covid restrictions lift.
He said there had been an increase in teenager murders, with 17 killed so far this year.
“If London continues to see this rate of violence, we will be on track to see the worst year for young homicides since 2008,” Commander Murray said. Twenty-eight teens were killed in 2008.
Commander Murray said the teen killings disproportionately affected certain communities–of the 17 victims, more than two thirds (12) are black.
Fifteen were killed with a knife and one shot. A boy, aged 14, died with two members of his family in a house fire started deliberately in Russett Way, Lewisham on March 6.
Last Friday, Jalan Woods-Bell, 15, became the third teenager killed in a week when he was stabbed to death during the school run in Hayes.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Denardo Samuels-Brooks, 17, died after he was chased in Streatham before being cornered and knifed in the chest.
Commander Murray urged everyone to listen to five women whose sons were stabbed to death who appealed in April to other mothers to help them end the bloodshed on London’s streets.
Lillian Serunkuma, Yvonne Lawson MBE, Jean Foster, Pastor Lorraine Jones and Becky Beston teamed up with the charity Crimestoppers and the Metropolitan Police for the Hard Calls Save Lives campaign.
The Met said it planned to increase the amount of officers on the streets as well as patrols of open spaces, parks, bars and clubs this summer.
There will be “surge activity” in areas “known for serious violence and gang activity” and a robbery operation targeting suspects using e-scooters and mopeds to commit crimes.
Yvonne Lawson, who lost her 17-year-old son Godwin to knife crime in 2010, said: “It has been 11 years since I sadly lost Godwin. Eleven years on, mothers are still losing their babies to knife crime in our capital.
“We should never get desensitized or complacent to youth violence. My dream 11 years ago was to prevent another mother from reliving my pain.”
Pastor Lorraine Jones, who lost her son Dwayne Simpson, 20, when he was stabbed in Brixton last year, called for the issue to be addressed as a “matter of urgency”.
She said: “As a mother who has lost her son through the senseless killings caused by youth violence, I plead with all communities, families, local authorities, social services, schools and faith groups to step up and engage more with our troubled youth before it results in violence.”
Commander Alex Murray, lead for violence, said that part of the problem is that people may not be forthcoming with information.
He added: “Detectives investigating serious violence often meet silence from people we know have information that could help prevent violence. We have seen it recently in the tragic shooting of Sasha Johnson that took place last month.”
The Metropolitan Police said that while it “understands that some people may not trust police”, it is working to “build those relationships” and show that preventing violence is its “number one priority”.
Mr Murray added: “We are devoting huge resources into doing everything within our power to minimize violence.
“But we simply cannot do this alone: everyone has a role to play. Community leaders, businesses, politicians, youth workers, parents and teachers – quite literally anybody and everybody – if you have networks that can help, please use them to get the message from these mothers across.”
Killings on the streets of London are not new, and have a history dating back to many decades. Gangs often sparked by a combination of poor background and a range of psychological issues including low self esteem, rejection, had made teenage years the most risky for those born and raised in London.
Gang rivalry through drugs has for one claimed countless lives over the years, as mainly school drop outs with complex backgrounds fight for territorial dominance in criminal circles that have no principles or morals, but consider fast cash as the key to a stable promising future. The rosy future many of these teens imagine never materializes for the many whose lives are cut short over greed and wickedness.