The streets of London are now more deadly than New York, with the capital recording a higher murder rate for the first time in modern history in February.
The past two months of bloodshed in London have overtaken New York’s murder rate, official police figures show, as Scotland Yard battles a 38 per cent surge in killings since 2014.
Fifteen people were killed in London in February, compared to 14 in New York.
And the trend looks set to continue, with 22 killings in London in March – one more than the city on the other side of the Atlantic, where urban violence has long been prevalent.
The figures emerged as Scotland Yard was called to yet another stabbing in the early hours of yesterday.
Devoy Stapleton, 20, was knifed to death on his way home from a night out at 1am in Wandsworth. It is the 31st fatal stabbing in London this year.
The surge in killings comes as rates of rape, robbery, and violent offences in London have already eclipsed those in New York.
London also has almost three times the number of reported rapes, but until February this year the murder rate in New York remained higher.
The total number of London murders, even excluding victims of terrorism, has risen by 38 per cent since 2014. In contrast, the number of murders in New York have fallen by 87 per cent since its 1990s peak.
Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick says social media sites could be to blame, claiming that disputes on online messaging boards and video sites were escalating to murder ‘within minutes’.
‘There’s definitely something about the impact of social media in terms of people being able to go from slightly angry with each other to “fight” very quickly,’ she said.
She also wants to increase the use of stop and search, which fell by up to two thirds when Theresa May was Home Secretary.
A few days ago we reported that the son of a house of rep member was shot dead in London.