Officers injured being chased off estate after police car smashed up at Brixton street party

  • london
  • June 25, 2020
  • Comments Off on Officers injured being chased off estate after police car smashed up at Brixton street party
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Shocking footage of a violent street party in Brixton has emerged as 22 officers were injured and police vehicles were smashed up.

Officers were called at around 7pm last night to multiple reports of a large unlicensed music event in the street at the Angell Town estate near Cecilia Road, in south London.

The Metropolitan Police said officers attempted to encourage the crowd to leave the location, but they would not engage with police.

The event continued and revellers grew increasingly hostile towards the police, with videos circulating on social media showing crowds chasing the police away, throwing glass bottles and one man threatening officers with a large piece of wood.

A man was filmed climbing onto a police car and repeatedly hitting it with a table leg, while another man stamped on the windscreen. People appeared to encourage the vandalism.

A dispersal zone was authorised under section 35 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 to encourage crowds to leave, and the event was cleared by the early hours of this morning.

Several police vehicles were damaged and 22 police officers were injured, but none seriously. Two officers required hospital treatment.

Videos of large fights have also been circulating, with claims someone was shot and stabbed. This has not yet been confirmed by police or the ambulance service.

One woman described the scene as ‘disgusting and sickening’. She tweeted: ‘They are out of control and you want to continue to ease lockdown?!How were they allowed to have a BLOCK PARTY that had hundreds of people and it didn’t get locked off?

‘And this wasn’t even the worst part, weapons were thrown at police, an abandoned police car smashed up, people’s cars parked smashed! Police driven out onto the main road by these disgraceful people shame on all of you!’  

A section 60 was later put in place around the area of the event to prevent violence.

Met Police commander Colin Wingrove said: ‘Our role is to protect the public and ensure guidelines are adhered to in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19 protecting the NHS and save lives.

‘Our officers work incredibly hard to engage and explain the public health message and regulations to prevent such gatherings occurring.

‘Last night we received numerous concerns from residents complaining about a large gathering, noise, anti-social behaviour and violence and officers responded to those concerns.

‘These gatherings are unlawful, as well as posing a risk to public health and against coronavirus restrictions.

‘The violence shown towards officers is totally unacceptable and we will not tolerate it in any form.

‘An investigation into the incident is now taking place and those involved will be brought to justice.’

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: ‘We received multiple calls overnight to reports of people injured in an area spanning Brixton Road, Loughborough Road and Overton Road, Brixton.

‘We sent six ambulance crews, eight medics in fast response cars and three officers to the area. We also dispatched an advanced trauma team from London’s Air Ambulance, which consists of a paramedic and a doctor in a car.

‘We treated two patients at the scene: one was taken to a major trauma centre as a priority and the other was taken to hospital. We also treated eight police officers, two of whom were taken to hospital in police vehicles.’

The large gathering comes just days after Boris Johnson is set to ease lockdown restrictions from July.

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