Standing outside the Stratford Centre, a dozen Metropolitan Police officers get ready to stop and search people they suspect are involved in crime.

One young man approaches and jokes to his friends ‘I’m not going to be stopped and searched’ – before the uniformed cops pull him aside.

He is put in handcuffs while they carry out a full body search, as witnessed by a Metro.co.uk reporter.

No drugs, knives or weapons were found – just one example of the tens of thousands of searches that do not end with a ‘positive outcome’, as it’s called by Scotland Yard.

There were 128,796 searches for suspected drugs from June 2021 to June 2022, and the Met found drugs on 33,850 occasions.

This standalone incident showcases the controversy around stop and search – both for the communities it impacts and for the police who enforce it.

Young people from BAME backgrounds are disproportionately affected, with them nine times more likely to be stopped than white people.

The Met strongly defends the searches, saying ‘a weapon seized is a weapon taken off our streets, helping to keep Londoners safe.’

Metro.co.uk watched police on the streets of east London as part of Operation Denali – a mission to tackle serious youth violence through stop and search, knife arches and engaging the community.

Locals were encouraged to walk through a knife arch, which detects if they are carrying a dangerous weapon.

If someone has a weapon on them, an alarm will sound and lights start flashing. Officers are then able to use their powers to stop and search an individual.

In essence, this scheme works, as members of Stratford’s community and even young children, were happy to approach uniformed cops, shake their hands and ask questions.

But operations like these are overshadowed by accusations of racial profiling.

This feeling of discrimination is discussed by Colin James, co-founder of Gangs Unite, a youth-focused social action group based in Walthamstow, north east London.

‘Life for a young black male in 2022 is not much different from 1982 or 1879, the racist targeting still exists, they get blamed for everything,’ he told Metro.co.uk.

‘The targeting of young black males is something that is decades old.

‘The blame for all violent crimes are always placed at the young black man’s feet, even though evidence and stats prove otherwise.

‘This is further backed up by the disproportionate level of stop and search directed towards young black males.’ 

Alexis Boon, Commander for the Met Police, insisted that stopping individuals helps save lives.

He said: ‘You talk to any mother or father of a murdered victim who has been murdered by a knife, they say stop and search is what they want us to do.

‘Taking knives off the streets protects youngsters. There is a very strong community behind us who support us with this.

‘We want to remove knives from the streets and this is a great operation to detect whether people are carrying knives.

‘But we’ve got to remember we need to do stop and search fairly and in accordance with the law and in a manner in which we engage with people in the right way.’

The Met has been running Operation Denali for six months and there have been positive results.

Four London boroughs, including Newham, Croydon, Haringay, Greenwich and Enfield are where they are focusing their attention.

There have so far been 2,628 stops, 561 arrests and 139 weapons seized across the four areas.

During the first three months of the operation, there were no teenage homicides in Croydon, Haringay and Greenwich.

In Haringey and Greenwich, there was a reduction in both serious youth violence (17%) and violence with injury (29%).

However, it has come after a violent weekend across the capital two weeks ago, which saw two people fatally shot on Sunday, July 24, hours after a fatal stabbing the day before.

There have been greater calls for police action after a record 30 teenagers were murdered in London in 2021 – surpassing a previous peak of 29 in 2008.

Stats show there was also a 7.4% increase in knife crime on the year before.

Mr James believes a wider community debate about the impact of stop and search is needed if changes and perceptions about knife crime are to ever change.

‘This is a subject that needs to have the right debates,’ he said.

‘The Met Police have caused riots in this country through their heavy handed targeted approach towards the black community.

‘Nothing has changed from generation to generation and unless something drastic happens I can’t see this ever stopping.’

Tom Pursglove, the new policing minister, was out and about talking to officers involved in the operation.

When questioned whether the government had done enough to tackle crime in London and the country’s streets, he said: ‘I know in London serious violence is a huge concern.

‘I think the work myself and the government are doing to get knives off our streets is absolutely fundamental in the fight against violent crime that we have been seeing.

‘I think our commitment to increasing the number of officers out on our streets is crucial in terms of providing reassurance to the public.’

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