Yahoo News Cressida Dick says public should 'do something physical' if they see police officer ‘getting a kicking’
Britain’s most senior police officer has said she wants the public to get involved if they see an officer “getting a kicking”.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told LBC that people filming attacks on police and mockingly posting the footage online was “absolutely awful”.
She said: “Officers getting assaulted and people thinking that’s funny and putting it on the internet – I think that’s disgusting.”
Last month a video of two officers being attacked in Merton, south London, was shared thousands of times after a passing driver stopped to film the assault and posted it on Twitter with the caption “south London at night…lol”.
The officers had stopped a car and were attempting to arrest the three occupants, but one ended up being dragged around in the road while the other took a flying kick to the chest and landed feet from the path of a moving bus.
Eventually, they arrested one of the men with the help of a passing motorcyclist.
Ms Dick encouraged members of the public to step in if they see a police officer being attacked and feel they can help.
She said: “I think I want to live in a society, and I think I do live in a society, where people are active citizens.
“People stand up and say ‘that’s not right, don’t do that’ and on occasion, if they feel able, get involved and do something physical.
“You have to look at the circumstances.
“If there’s a man pointing a gun at you we don’t want you running at the man pointing the gun, that would be crazy.
“If you see an officer getting a kicking and you feel able to assist, absolutely I want my public getting involved, and we see people getting involved, including in some of those videos.
“We don’t want people taking crazy risks, we do want people getting involved.”
In the wake of the Merton attack, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Ken Marsh warned that officers might be forced to let violent suspects go.
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He said: “We don’t come to work to get assaulted, and if we’re not going to be backed up in what we’re doing then what is the point?”
The male officer suffered cuts and the female officer was left with head injuries after the assault.
Ms Dick also insisted the tide is turning against the rise in violent crime.
So far in the capital this year there have been 123 homicides, more than the 118 in the whole of last year, not including the victims of terrorist attacks.
Ms Dick told LBC that after three years of gun and knife crime increasing, the rate was now starting to level off and come down.
But she admitted that it would take a long time to tackle the 180 violent gangs in London that are “busy” dragging children into crime.
Figures released by Scotland Yard on Tuesday showed that in September, October and November this year there were 176 fewer victims of knife crime with injury aged under 25 than in the same three months in 2017, a 31% reduction.
Over the course of a year, there has been a drop of 287 victims, a 13% decrease.
The Commissioner told Nick Ferrari: “After three years of knife crime increasing, gun crime increasing, they are now not just levelling off but beginning to come down.
“These aren’t huge changes. I think, however, we are suppressing it.”
Last week, Ms Dick admitted that at least two moped-riding thieves had suffered broken bones after the Metropolitan Police introduced controversial new tactics to ram raiders with their pursuit vehicles.
On Tuesday, it emerged that a Metropolitan Police officer is under criminal investigation after using a controversial manoeuvre to knock a teenager off his moped, leaving him with serious head injuries.
The officer, who has not been named, is being probed after carrying out a so-called tactical contact to deliberately stop the 17-year-old riding dangerously in Erith, south-east London, in November last year.
The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), confirmed it is also investigating a second tactical contact case involving another Metropolitan Police officer, which featured an adult moped rider in Ealing, west London, in March.
The second case is not a criminal investigation, but comes amid divided political opinion over use of the tactic.
