The London murder rate has overtaken New York’s for the first time ever following a shooting in Tottenham on Monday night.
A 17-year-old girl has been shot dead in North London, police said, while a 16-year-old boy is in critical condition after a second gun attack.
The shooting comes amid concerns over rising violent crime in the capital, a spike in the rate saw more murders committed in the city in past two months than there were in New York, including 11 killings over the span of just 16 days.
In February, London recorded 15 homicides compared to New York’s 14, while in March there were 22, as opposed to 21 in the US city.
The stabbing of a 20-year-old in Wandsworth last Sunday made it the 31st knife crime incident of 2018.
Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, has blamed social media for soaring levels of violence, claiming that online forums allow threats to rapidly escalate. But the Met has also lost thousands of officers as part of budget cuts across the police service which could also have caused this increase in knife incidents.
The government has launched a £1.5 million campaign aimed at 10 to 21-year-olds to run adverts across social media and digital channels featuring stories of teenagers who have been stabbed.