Police boss speaks out after spate of knife crime

West Midlands Police Deputy Chief Constable Louise Rolfe spoke after a 16-year-old was discovered with fatal injuries in Small Heath, Birmingham, on Wednesday night.

The attack is just one of a number of fatal incidents involving knives in Birmingham and the Black Country in recent weeks, including the fatal stabbing of another 16-year-old outside the Joseph Chamberlain College in Balsall Heath last week.

DCC Rolfe said: "Wednesday night's incident was an exceptional case for us, a 16-year-old boy lost his life, it was a hugely tragic and horrific incident.

"We are very concerned about a number of knife-related incidents, but there is nothing to suggest this is connected to the incident at the college.

"The public will see a very robust police response, we've pooled more resources, such as officers who were on training will now be working in the community with the neighbourhood officers and using powers such as stop and search.

"We will be working with communities to understand their fears, and we will leave no stone unturned in bringing to justice the people responsible.

"There will be both visible and covert operations and where there is an emergency call about knives we will make sure we respond effectively."

DCC Rolfe appealed directly to those responsible to come forward, as well as the family and friends of people who may have been involved.

She said: "If you are responsible for these incidents please come forward. One, we want to understand why it happened but also it is worse if you try to evade the police.

"We will hunt them down and we will be bringing them to justice and I am very confident we will be successful in that.

"I think it's really important friends and family come forward if they know anything, a child has lost his life, it is awful for his family, put yourselves in their shoes,

"If you're a parent I would urge you to speak to your children, and if you are worried then talk to us as we don't want to criminalise young people, we want to understand and protect them and work to address the things that might be making them fearful and want to carry a knife."

Organised crime and exploitation could be reasons by young people become involved in knife crime, DCC Rolfe said, as well as mental health issues and teenagers being suspended from school.

"It's a really complex problem, I really worry that the propensity is for young people to carry knives and use them where years ago they might throw a few punches now more young people seem to carry knives," she added.

"Clearly in some cases there will be a connection with organised crime and exploitation and young people being influenced.

"We do know from some previous offences there have been elements of gang violence. If young people are excluded from school, if they have mental health issues there might be more risk of them being involved in crime, so we do need to make sure they have the right support.

"We obviously analyse crime statistics all the time. February is traditionally a low crime time for us. Offences like burglary will reduce at this time of year.

"Knife crime has been increasing steadily across the UK for a number of years. There doesn't seem to be a seasonal pattern.

"There are still exceptional incidents."