Police seized knives and Class A drugs in a massive crackdown on street dealing and violence yards from the home of mayor Sadiq Khan.
More than 100 officers raided addresses in Tooting on Tuesday night and yesterday, with support from dogs and a police helicopter. They arrested at least 29 people for offences including possession of knives and drug dealing.
In one raid, on a Caribbean cafe in Mitcham Lane, police seized knife-carrying suspects in the street as they tried to flee.
The swoop on the One Link cafe came three months after the murder of trainee electrician Lewis Elwin, 20, who was ambushed by a gang in nearby Penwortham Road, yards from the mayor’s home. Police say the raids were in response to a rise in open drug-dealing in the street, anti-social behaviour and violence.
In a dramatic operation Territorial Support Group officers burst out of the back of an unmarked white van after it pulled up alongside the cafe, in a row of shops.
The officers rushed into the restaurant and held customers and staff while other suspects were seized in the street as they ran. One man was caught with a large kitchen knife.
An array of weapons, including three large combat knives and lock knives, were also recovered. Passers-by and residents watched as dozens of police swooped on the address, described by one detective as a “magnet for drug dealing and violence”.
Jolanda Wlodek, 40, said: “Suddenly all these police leapt out of a van and ran into the shop. They started chasing people in the street, it was very dramatic, I have never seen anything like it before.”
Residents said the area around the cafe had been plagued with drug- dealing, drunks and violence. One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: “There was always trouble here with drug-dealing in the street, drunken shouting and fighting at all hours. It has been going on for two years.”
Police seized knives and Class A drugs in a massive crackdown on street dealing and violence yards from the home of mayor Sadiq Khan.
