Met police boss ‘unapologetic’ over pre-Notting Hill Carnival arrests
Written by News on 26/08/2017
The senior officer in charge of policing the Notting Hill Carnival says he is "unapologetic" for a series of drugs raids linked to the event.
During a three-week crackdown by officers ahead of the west London event, more than 600 people were arrested and a large number of knives, guns, weapons, drugs and money seized.
The Met tweeted about the seizure of what was believed to be a kilogram of uncut heroin in Catford, southeast London.
The Twitter post led UK grime artist Stormzy to reply: "How many drugs did you lot seize in the run up to Glastonbury or we only doing tweets like this for black events?"
Metropolitan Police commander David Musker, in charge of policing the Notting Hill event, has responded to criticism, saying: "I think the public would expect us to do what we can to prevent those injuries to people coming to carnival."
"My job is to keep people safe who go to carnival, and I am unapologetic about doing that.
"But that is the point of doing that. To get people who would normally come to carnival to cause problems off the streets before the event."
Chief superintendent Robyn Williams said: "It isn’t exclusive to carnival, we would put it in place for a whole range of large-scale events. In terms of carnival we are uncompromising in our efforts for it to be safe and secure this year."
More than 450 people were arrested over the two days of festivities in 2016, with around 300 detained in the preceding crackdown.
Mr Musker said it is a "fallacy" to suspect that people caught in possession of heroin are not going to carnival.
(c) Sky News 2017: Met police boss ‘unapologetic’ over pre-Notting Hill Carnival arrests
