Police have sent mounted police to patrol the streets of Croydon and conducted ‘Stop and Searches’ across South London in recent days after a wave of stabbings south of the River Thames.
Officers mounted on police horses were pictured riding down London Road near West Croydon station on Saturday evening (February 6), where just hours earlier a 24-year-old man had been found with stab injuries.
That incident was the latest in a wave of stabbings in South London that also witnessed a man in his 20s stabbed in Couldson on Saturday.
In addition, a 22-year-old man sadly pass away on Wisbeach Road in Croydon after he was fatally stabbed on Friday night (February 5).
TSG U53 were on patrol in @MPSCroydon tonight after several serious incidents of violence when we had cause to stop and search a vehicle & its occupants. This deadly knife was found and a life was saved #spaceforfourplease pic.twitter.com/iy9Yl9qNVL
— MetTaskforce (@MetTaskforce) February 6, 2021
Detectives are also investigating four further incidents that occurred on Friday evening in Croydon, Wandsworth and Chislehurst in which a number of people sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Two men have been arrested.
Meanwhile, the Met Police said they were continuing to employ ‘Stop and Search’ tactics in South London and posted images of knives seized after searches of people in both Croydon and Lambeth in recent days.
The Met have defended their use of the controversial Stop and Search policy despite studies suggesting it disproportionately targeted black people in England and Wales.
A number of studies, including one published in the Modern Law Review, have showed that Black people in England and Wales were disproportionately much more likely to be stop/searched than would be expected based on their numbers in the general population, and that the tactics can harm relationships between BAME communities and the police.