Attacks against police officers are increasing amid a violent crime wave in Great Britain, with six officers injured in one force area over a three-day period.
West Midlands Police covers a wide geographical area which includes Birmingham, Britain’s multicultural second city, and Wolverhampton, the former seat of the late anti-mass migration campaigner Enoch Powell.
The first officer to be attacked was stabbed during an attempted carjacking while off-duty on September 5th, in a shocking scene captured on CCTV.
A hooded man clad in black is said to have approached the 25-year-old officer in Walsall in the middle of the day at 1:30 pm and demanded his car keys, chasing him down and stabbing him in the chest several times when he tried to run.
Carrying firearms, pepper spray, or any other article for self-defence is prohibited in the United Kingdom, even for off-duty police officers and members of the Armed Forces — with the exception of Northern Ireland.
The remaining five officers were injured in the line of duty over a period of only a little over 24 hours.
The most serious incident involved a 50-year-old female officer who was run down by a car at 9 in the morning on September 6th, also in Walsall, while trying to diffuse a domestic situation.
The officer was hospitalised with a serious head injury, punctured lung, and broken ribs.
Another officer had been injured in a vehicle attack only hours beforehand, suffering neck and back injuries when his patrol car was rammed repeatedly and badly damaged by a van after he had pursued a suspected shop robber in Strechford.
The morning before that, three armed officers had been injured in a similar incident, when a suspected stolen car they had pulled over lurched backwards into one of them as he approached the vehicle, leaving him with a broken ankle. The officers inside the patrol vehicle then suffered whiplash injuries when the car proceeded to ram them.
West Midlands Police Assistant Chief Constable Chris Johnson praised the bravery and service of the officers involved in the incidents, saying they “highlight once again the dangers our brave officers face every day… they put themselves in harm’s way to deal with dangerous situations.”
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