London's police force has made nearly 400 arrests in just one week in a crackdown on knife crime in the capital.

In the past two weeks alone, 11 people have died as a result of knife crime in the city, including four in west London.

Now the Metropolitan Police say it has launched intense proactive operations to tackle knife crime, as part of Phase Eight of their Operation Sceptre.

In the week of action, a total of 393 arrests were made, including 73 arrests for possession of an offensive weapon/knife and 144 stop and search arrests.

The police's 'week of action' in figures

Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Gallagher, the Met's 'Silver lead' for knife crime, said: "This operation carries a positive and powerful message: this is about all of us addressing a problem that often has tragic consequences.

"This behaviour is damaging our communities; there is no excuse, people are better than this and our communities are better than this.

"Across London there are number of excellent diversionary programmes that are bespoke to the needs of Londoners. This is clearly a safeguarding issue for the people who do, and would, carry knives and victims of knife crime.

"A collaborative approach between statutory agencies, non-governmental organisations and communities is the only solution to achieving a long term reduction in this type of offence, underpinned by a strong, academic evidence base and effective police enforcement."

The Operation Sceptre taskforce are a group of 100 officers, a mixture of detectives and uniform police, who will be deployed to knife crime hotspots on intelligence-led operations to help protect the public and bring offenders to justice.

The taskforce will seek to replicate the success of the intense activity carried out by local teams during Operation Sceptre. This dedicated group of officers will provide intense support to borough police and create a more coordinated and consistent approach to reducing knife crime.

They will carry out weapons sweeps, intelligence-led stop and search, and proactive operations to target habitual knife carriers, as well as increasing visibility of police officers to reassure local people and deter further violence.

A week of London knife crime in numbers:

Weapon sweeps - 1080

Knives seized - 300

Offensive weapons seized - 62

Firearms recovered - 15

People stopped and searched - 822

Test purchase ops - 72

#StopKnifeCrime

The Metropolitan Police Service say they continue to receive strong support from communities across London who want to work together to end these crimes.

The force are using the Twitter hashtag #StopKnifeCrime to raise awareness, and have place knife bins throughout London. Click here to see a map showing the location of knife bins across London.

If you have information about anyone carrying or using knives please contact your local police via 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

For news updates and Sceptre Eight activities follow Borough police Twitter feeds and @metpoliceuk and #stopknifecrime.

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