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Met hunt killers of boy ‘stabbed for Gucci bag’ in London’s 28th teen fatality

Anthony France

DETECTIVES were continuing a hunt for the killers of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed to death, reportedly over his fake Gucci bag.

Rishmeet Singh was the 28th teenager killed in London this year with the city teetering on the brink of equalling the record 29 young lives lost to violent crime in 2008.

Witnesses said they saw Rishmeet being chased by a number of youths before he collapsed in a front garden near his home in Southall at

9pm on Wednesday night.

A shopkeeper told the

Standard: “He was a good guy. His friends are all saying he was stabbed over this Gucci bag, it wasn’t even real. It’s terrible.”

It follows six days after Jermaine Cools, 14, was knifed to death outside

West Croydon train station. There have been no arrests in either murder investigation.

It comes as a senior Scotland Yard officer says having teenagers makes him more determined to bear down on London’s violent crime epidemic.

Commander Alex Murray spoke out as the three-week Operation Autumn Nights blitz resulted in 568 arrests, 38 firearms recovered and 504 cars

taken off the road. Of 835 weapons seized, nearly every one came from a raid on a private wholesaler selling zombie knives to young people.

Hundreds of officers set up checkpoints on motorways and arterial roads into

London, pulling over cars flagged up on the number plate database to search for drugs, cash and stolen vehicles. Another team posted to the Westfield shopping centre in White City caught a team of muggers targeting youngsters.

Commander Murray said he was emotional last week listening to campaigner Lorraine Jones, whose son Dwayne Simpson, 20, was fatally stabbed in 2014.

He said: “I have three children. Two are teenagers. Parents who have lost children have a unique perspective that not a lot of us understand ... everyone needs to work together on this, from police, to councils, schools, communities and families.”

The Met has launched 121 homicides investigations in 2021. However, the force is currently achieving a murder detection rate of between 95 and 99 per cent.

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2021-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

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