Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick today urged members of the public “to get involved” if they see police officers being attacked in the street.
She condemned those who filmed attacks on officers as “absolutely awful” and urged people to come to the aid of police being attacked if they could.
The Met Commissioner’s comments came after a female officer was assaulted with a flying kick in south London last month while onlookers filmed the incident on their mobile phones.
Speaking on LBC’s Nick Ferrari radio programme today, she said: “What we seem to be seeing now is not only police officers being assaulted, but sometimes crowds gathering and then some people filming, laughing, joking.”
She said there had been two or three videos where people have tried to drag officers away from the person they are trying to arrest. She added: “Officers getting assaulted and people thinking that’s funny, putting it on the internet I think is disgusting.” Asked if people should “pitch in,” Ms Dick said: “I think I want to live in a society and I think I do live in a society where we have active citizens, where people stand up and say ‘that’s not right, don’t do that’, or on occasion, even, if they feel able, get involved and do something physically.”
But she added: “I do not want people taking crazy risks but we want to see people getting involved.”
Ms Dick also defended plans to deploy armed officers on “short foot patrols” following serious gang violence. She said there could be “very limited circumstances” where they would go on a “targeted deployment on foot” citing one recent example in south London where there had been three shootings and a murder in a small area within six hours.
