The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police, is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and the prevention of crime in Greater London. In addition, the Metropolitan Police is also responsible for some specialised matters throughout the United Kingdom; these responsibilities include co-ordinating and leading national counter-terrorism measures and the personal safety of specific individuals, such as the Monarch and other members of the Royal Family, members of the Government, and other officials.
Carjacking is a robbery in which the item taken over is a motor vehicle. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is usually in the presence and knowledge of the victim. A common crime in many places in the world, carjacking has been the subject of legislative responses, criminology studies, and prevention efforts. Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars containing valuable cargo are common targets of carjacking attempts. Carjacking usually involves physical violence to the victim, or using the victim as a hostage. In rare cases, carjacking may also involve sexual assault.
Yardie is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican patois for home or "yard". The term may have specifically originated from the crowded "government yards" of two-storey concrete homes found in Kingston and inhabited by poorer Jamaican residents, though "yard" can also refer to "home" or "turf" in general in Jamaican patois.
Sir John Reginald Hornby Nott-Bower was Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1953 to 1958. He was the first career police officer to hold this post.
The Spaghetti House siege took place between 28 September and 3 October 1975. An attempted robbery of the Spaghetti House restaurant in Knightsbridge, London, went wrong and the police were quickly on the scene. The three robbers took the staff down into a storeroom and barricaded themselves in. They released all the hostages unharmed after six days. Two of the gunmen gave themselves up; the ringleader, Franklin Davies, shot himself in the stomach. All three were later imprisoned, as were two of their accomplices.
Ian Warwick Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton, is a British retired policeman who held the position of Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 2005 to 2008 and was the highest-ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service. He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1974 under a graduate scheme, and served 10 years in London. As deputy chief constable of Thames Valley Police, he handled the protests over the construction of the Newbury bypass, and then became chief constable of Surrey Police, before being appointed deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and then commissioner in January 2005. His term of office saw the mistaken shooting of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, which resulted in contradictory police reports, and his comments on race caused some controversy among ethnic-minority police officers.
The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Specialist Operations directorate is a unit of the Metropolitan Police of London, UK responsible for providing specialist policing capabilities including national security and counter-terrorism operations. The Specialist Operations Directorate is currently led by Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes.
Dame Cressida Rose Dick is a British retired senior police officer who served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 2017 to 2022. She is both the first female and first openly homosexual officer to lead the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or the Met, in London.
Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, usually just Assistant Commissioner (AC), is the third highest rank in London's Metropolitan Police, ranking below Deputy Commissioner and above Deputy Assistant Commissioner. There are usually four officers in the rank. However, as of March 2022 there are five due to the continuing secondment of Assistant Commissioner Rob Beckley to Operation Resolve, the criminal investigation into the Hillsborough Disaster. There have also at times been five in the past.
Operation Countryman was an investigation into police corruption in London in the late 1970s. The operation was conducted between 1978–1982 at a total cost of £3 million and led to eight police officers being prosecuted, although none were convicted. The initial allegations of corruption were made by a supergrass who claimed that some officers, including members of the elite Flying Squad which dealt with commercial armed robberies, were receiving bribes from criminals in return for warnings of imminent police raids or arrests, the fabrication of evidence against innocent men, and having charges against guilty criminals dropped.
Keith Henry Blakelock QGM, a London Metropolitan Police constable, was murdered on 6 October 1985 during rioting at the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, north London. The riot broke out after Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure during a police search of her home, and took place against a backdrop of unrest in several English cities and a breakdown of relations between the police and some people in the Black community.
Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex, in the East of England. Essex Police is responsible for a population of over 1.8 million people and an area of 1,420 square miles (3,700 km2).
Sir Kenneth Leslie Newman was a senior British police officer. He was Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) from 1976 to 1980, and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1982 to 1987. He is best known for initiating a major reform and restructure of the Metropolitan Police during his tenure as Commissioner and for seeing the RUC replace the British Army as the dominant security force in Northern Ireland during his tenure as Chief Constable.
Sir William Ian Ridley Johnston CBE QPM DL was the Chief Constable of British Transport Police. He became Chief Constable on 1 May 2001 when he succeeded David Williams QPM, who had served as Chief Constable for three and a half years.
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially motivated riots that took place in Notting Hill, England, between 29 August and 5 September 1958.
A rookery is a colloquial English term given in the 18th and 19th centuries to a city slum occupied by poor people and frequently also by criminals and prostitutes. Such areas were overcrowded, with low-quality housing and little or no sanitation. Local industry such as coal plants and gasholders polluted the rookery air. Poorly constructed dwellings, built with multiple stories and often crammed into any area of open ground, created densely-populated areas of gloomy, narrow streets and alleyways. By many, these parts of the city were sometimes deemed "uninhabitable".
The history of the Metropolitan Police in London is long and complex, with many different events taking place between its inception in 1829 to the present day.
The Metropolitan Police of Greater London is organised into four main directorates, each with differing responsibilities. These are Frontline Policing, Met Operations, Specialist Operations, Professionalism and six civilian staffed support departments under the umbrella of Met Headquarters. Each is overseen by an Assistant Commissioner, or in the case of a support department a director of police staff which is the equivalent civilian grade.
Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It is a philosophy of full-service policing that is highly personal, where an officer patrols the same area for an extended time and develops a partnership with citizens to collaboratively identify and solve problems.