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WALTHAM FOREST: Murder rate doubles

10:20am Friday 17th April 2009 in


THE murder rate has doubled in Waltham Forest over the last 12 months, Met Police figures have shown.

There were 10 murders in the 12 months to March this year, compared to five in the same period the year before.

The figures also show a 46 per cent increase in the number of robberies of businesses, and there were 2,173 burgled homes - a rise of 24.7 per cent.

Racist crime increased by 18.5 per cent and there were a reported 1,830 domestic violence incidents, a rise of 9.5 per cent.

But local police will be pleased that reported gun crime fell by 12.6 per cent, and there were also decreases in the number of reported homophobic incidents (down 14 per cent) and there was a 10 per cent drop in the number of rape incidents.

The crime rate as a whole for the borough increased slightly, by 1.7 per cent.

Across London as a whole there was a two per cent drop in recorded crime, although the number of reported rapes increased by 15 per cent.

Comments(13)

Janet1 says...
11:58am Fri 17 Apr 09

But at least we're safe from amateur photographers!

In today's national Guardian, news that Walthamstow police forced an elderly Austrian tourist to delete photos he'd taken of buses.

http://www.guardian.
co.uk/uk/2009/apr/16
/police-delete-touri
st-photos

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jrp says...
12:46pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Crime is up because the visual presence of the police is down. One of the Safer Neighbourhood teams in the south of the borough is understaffed and is not allowed overtime even after an alleged firearms incident. Borough Commander Benbow needs to get his finger out and deal with this problem NOW, before it gets any worse.

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Karl Koch says...
12:48pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Janet1 wrote:
But at least we're safe from amateur photographers! In today's national Guardian, news that Walthamstow police forced an elderly Austrian tourist to delete photos he'd taken of buses. http://www.guardian. co.uk/uk/2009/apr/16 /police-delete-touri st-photos
It's in the Daily Mail as well - absolutely outrageous.

I hope Waltham Forest Police will investigate and ensure this type of dictatorship-esque policing does not happen again.

Perhaps a protest could be organised where everyone could go to the bus station to take photos en-masse?!?!!

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Walthamstow noob says...
1:31pm Fri 17 Apr 09

There was also a good write up from one of my favourite local blogs:
http://crapwalthamfo
rest.blogspot.com/20
09/04/austrian-touri
st-harassed-in.html

He suspects it was PCSOs who harrassed the tourist rather than proper Police Officers.

I doubt anything will be investigated, you need video or picture evidence for that (as with the unfortunate Mr Tomlinson). Funny how the Police don't like people taking pictures or making videos isn't it!

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techiebabe says...
2:11pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Not sure what the Walthamstow tourist story has got to do with the murder rate?

But anyway, if snapping anything that might an issue I always carry the leaflet from this page about photographer's rights: http://www.sirimo.co
.uk/ukpr.php and a list of prohibited places: http://www.opsi.gov.
uk/SI/si1994/Uksi_19
940968_en_2.htm - and then if challenged, it can quickly be defused.

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Techno2 says...
2:18pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Walthamstow noob wrote:
There was also a good write up from one of my favourite local blogs: http://crapwalthamfo rest.blogspot.com/20 09/04/austrian-touri st-harassed-in.html He suspects it was PCSOs who harrassed the tourist rather than proper Police Officers. I doubt anything will be investigated, you need video or picture evidence for that (as with the unfortunate Mr Tomlinson). Funny how the Police don't like people taking pictures or making videos isn't it!
Not entirely so. The local police are often to be seen in the local media, smiling and patting themsleves on the back alongside our Labour councillors while wasting taxpayers' money on some PR nonsense or other.

Meanwhile, the crime rates (whatever measure they choose to spin) remain well above the national average and the corruption inquiries into the council proceed at a glacial pace with no arrests.

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Techno2 says...
2:28pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Janet1 wrote:
But at least we're safe from amateur photographers! In today's national Guardian, news that Walthamstow police forced an elderly Austrian tourist to delete photos he'd taken of buses. http://www.guardian. co.uk/uk/2009/apr/16 /police-delete-touri st-photos
I have contacted a couple of members of the Metropolitan Police Authority about this. They have also had the previous incident with the PCSO and the 97 bus crash referred to in crapwalthamforest drawn to their attention.

Jenny Jones (Greens) and Caroline Pigeon (LibDems) say they are raising the matter with the commissioner.

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Janet1 says...
3:06pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Techiebabe, the murder rate is horrific. My point is that police should be out on the streets, as a visible deterrent to crime, not wasting time on meeting arbitrary 'targets', or hassling photographers.

Noob, I'd be interested to know if these were PCSOs.

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Walthamstow noob says...
3:28pm Fri 17 Apr 09

I have no idea for sure if they were PCSOs I'm afraid. It's just based on the comments of the blogger I linked to. It just seems believable to me because PCSOs seem unlikely to have the same knowledge of the job that a full-time officer would have.

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Malcolm Shykles says...
5:32pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Professor Danny Dorling has said of murder “The rate has risen most for those demographic groups and in those areas, for whom and where people have become relatively poorer over time."
Stuffing Walthamstow with cheap housing will never help the prosperity of the area

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Stow Away says...
7:55pm Fri 17 Apr 09

But local police will be pleased that reported gun crime fell by 12.6 per cent....Well I suppose it saves all that crawling about on their hands and knees looking for shell cases.

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Redfox says...
10:40pm Fri 17 Apr 09

The details don't supply the percentage of murders as black-on-black, so it isn't possible to draw proper conclusions about whether this problem is of much concern to the other members of the community.
I would suggest the greater proportion are in such a category and it's a bit thick that after years of slating the police and bringing up their children with their own prejudices against them, they want the police to come into their communities when they find all their bile of decades has turned against them.
Perhaps they should have turned their backs on drugs and gangs about 20 years ago, then they wouldn't now be suffering the sad consequences of dead and injured family.

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Techno2 says...
11:44pm Fri 17 Apr 09

Redfox wrote:
The details don't supply the percentage of murders as black-on-black, so it isn't possible to draw proper conclusions about whether this problem is of much concern to the other members of the community. I would suggest the greater proportion are in such a category and it's a bit thick that after years of slating the police and bringing up their children with their own prejudices against them, they want the police to come into their communities when they find all their bile of decades has turned against them. Perhaps they should have turned their backs on drugs and gangs about 20 years ago, then they wouldn't now be suffering the sad consequences of dead and injured family.
A dead person is a dead person no matter what the colour of their skin or the colour of the skin of the assailant. A doubling of the murder rate should, and does, whether you like it or not, concern everyone.

As for blaming people what should have gone on twenty yeasr ago, that is of historic interest to very few of the teenagers who are likely to be most affected by the fear of violence they now live under - they would not have been born then. What they need are todays adults to take their circumsatnces seriously and try to find ways of alleviating them, and the rest of the community, of this burden of fear.

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