Black Lives Matter Protests ‘Contributed’ to a 38 Per Cent Rise in Attacks on London Police

Assaults on Metropolitan Police officers rose by nearly 40 per cent during the Chinese coronavirus lockdown in London, with Scotland Yard pointing to violent protests and street-parties-turned-riots as the main driver of the rise in attacks.

The Met said that between May and July, there were 2,027 attacks on officers in the British capital, representing a 38 per cent jump over the same period last year.

The police force told the BBC that large scale protests including those held by Black Lives Matter and supposedly far-right groups “contributed” to the massive rise in attacks on British police. A swath of unlicensed music events which devolved into violent confrontations is also believed to account for part of the increase in assaults on officers.

The figures also revealed that in the year leading up to July 2020, 6,668 police officers were attacked, which is also a 16 per cent rise over the previous year.

The head of Operation Hampshire — the Met’s task force dealing with assaults on officers — Chief Inspector Dave Brewster said: “It is clear that assaults on police officers and staff are increasing year-on-year and the impact this has on our profession cannot and should not be underestimated.

“Assaults should never be seen as part of the job, and officers should be able to go about their work without fear of abuse or attack. However, we know that is not always the reality,” he said.

“The impact can have long-term effects on the individual that may not always be apparent and are not always physical,” CI Brewster warned.

At present, perpetrators of common assault or battery against a British police officer — or other front-line workers such as firefighters and paramedics — will only face a maximum sentence of 12 months behind bars. The government is considering doubling the sentence to two years in England and Wales.

Sophie Linden, London’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, said: “Our officers have been working tirelessly under increasing pressures to keep our communities safe during these challenging times.”

“The violence we’ve seen directed at them is simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Police officers deserve our full respect and anyone who attacks an officer should feel the full force of the law,” Linden added.

In June, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said that he thinks law and order will be the defining issue of the decade, as Brexit defined the last.

Farage warned that there is “a growing racial divide because people will not be put up with being dictated to by a Marxist organisation called ‘Black Lives Matter’. It just doesn’t work.”

“The sheer extent to which, now, people are regularly victims of crimes, and yet they now have got to the point where they hardly even bother to report them,” Farage noted.

“There has been a massive explosion in crime. It manifests itself in all sorts of different ways. Some of it is physical, violent assault. Some of it is theft. Some of it is fraud,” he explained.

Mr Farage made the comments in the wake of a ‘street party’ turned riot in Brixton, which saw police flee after a “hostile crowd” of thugs chased them down, with one even apparently wielding a sword.

Responding to the dramatic rise in attacks against police, PC Nick Morley — a victim of an assault which saw him dragged by a speeding car at 50 miles per hour — said: “I’m not scared, but now as a supervisor, it surprises me how often PCs get assaulted on a daily basis.”

“In my opinion, it’s getting worse, and I don’t know how to stop that,” the officer lamented.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka