Knife crime: Police seize 200 weapons in stop and search blitz

The kitchen knife is the most common weapon used in teenage stabbings, Sir Ian Blair said today, as he revealed that close to 200 weapons have been seized since officers stepped up stop and search measures in response to a spate of recent knife crime.

The Metropolitan police commissioner said his officers had carried out more than 4,000 operations and more than 200 people had been arrested during the two-week blitz in an attempt to stem knife crime in the capital.

Officers with metal detector arches and hand-held scanners targeted 10 London boroughs, including Southwark, Lambeth and Croydon, and searches had revealed several six-inch carving knives, along with kitchen blades, craft and pen knives.

Blair said Operation Blunt 2, the name given to the anti-knife blitz which is part of the wider Operation Blunt initiative launched in November 2004, was targeting areas where weapons are used and where those who use them live.

The campaign, which will cost the Met up to £1m this year, has deployed officers on 185 priority schools and colleges and each of the 59 units for excluded pupils across London.

"The Met has stepped up its operations with the support of the community … you are now more likely to be stopped and searched," Blair said at a Scotland Yard briefing today.

"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.

"The most common knife involved in these deaths is a knife from the kitchen and we must have conversations about knife crime with teenagers."

There have been 15 teenagers killed in London since the beginning of the year, 10 from knife attacks, and the bank holiday weekend was marred with violent incidents.

The aspiring actor Robert Knox, 18, who had a role in the latest Harry Potter film, was stabbed to death in a fight outside the Metro Bar in Sidcup.

His death followed the murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen, who was attacked on May 10 with a shard of glass outside a bakery in Lee, south-east London.

"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," Blair said.

"Ultimately, the aim is to encourage not only those whom young people respect and listen to champion this approach, but also to find champions among young people themselves."

Cindy Butts, the deputy chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said Londoners must stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the police, adding that 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."

The deputy mayor of London Kit Malthouse, who advises the mayor on crime, said he was pleased with the police action but admitted the increased stop and search operations could be controversial.

"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."