Top cop vows to tackle Walsall knife crime as two stabbed to death in just two weeks
Walsall's new police chief has vowed to crackdown on knife crime amid five incidents in just four months.
Chief Superintendent Andy Parsons, who was appointed to the role on January 2, said tackling knife crime is a 'priority'.
In this month alone, eight-year-old Mylee Billngham in Brownhills along with Rezwan Ali in The Chuckery were fatally stabbed in separate incidents.
It follows on from the death of 19-year-old Reagan Asbury, from Pesall, who was stabbed at a boxing match in October.
Plus last month there were two incidents involving knives where a 32-year-old man was stabbed on Leicester Street on December 5 and on Christmas Eve knife, a man was stabbed outside UNIT nightclub at Bradford Place.
He said: "Knife crime and the possession of knives is a priority for Walsall as a partnership.
"There is a huge range of partnership efforts that are being put in place around yellow jackets and knife arches, which is all important.
"There are a number of operations just prior to Christmas in and around the town centre both in terms of trying to detect knife crime, which we did, but also in terms of educating the public.
"The front end of that is working with partners in schools and with young people."
Education is the cornerstone of the schemes to tackle knife crime including commissioning street doctors and mentors in violence prevention.
They will commission junior doctors to talk to young people about the dangers of carrying a knife as well as have young people mentoring other young people in violence prevention.
He added: "If you carry a knife you are more likely to be the victim of that knife than the offender.
"We also want to highlight the medical issues of knife crime i.e. there is no safe place to stab somebody which I think is a widely held view with young people that they think there might be but we have seen national stories to prove that is not the case."
Across all crimes, he wants to encourage members of the community to report anything suspicious they see to help the police deal with it effectively.
The 42-year-old police boss has spent 20 years in the force which has been spend in the West Midlands.
He started in Smethwick before being a sergeant in Walsall when he policed Moxley, Darlaston and Willenhall. Since then he has worked in Handsworth, Dudley and Birmingham in the role of superintendent before his most recent promotion.
He added: "Walsall is not new for me, I know it and love it. It has got it's traditions and issues like everywhere and my priority in the first few weeks is to understand the issues."
