Operation Trident’s crack murder squad is disbanded in shake-up

 
Justin Davenport13 March 2013
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Detectives from Scotland Yard’s specialist Trident squads who deal with gun killings are to be redeployed in a shake-up of murder investigations.

The Trident teams will be disbanded and all London murders, including “black-on-black” gun killings, will be investigated in future by the Yard’s main specialist homicide and serious crime squads.

Critics say the decision will effectively mean the end of Operation Trident, which was launched in 1998 to combat a rise in shootings in the black community and a lack of trust in police. The move comes a year after Trident was reorganised into an anti-gang unit, and following a fall in the number of fatal shootings in London to five last year.

Former Met adviser Claudia Webbe, who helped launch Trident, said: “The Trident murder investigation unit is the core of everything Trident does. Without the murder investigation team, the police will find it increasingly difficult to infiltrate, interrogate and investigate these types of murders.”

She added: “Black men and women and sometimes children are disproportionately dying on our streets. Trident was always about its specialism and sensitivity that enabled it to get into the culture of the black community and bring people to justice at a time when large numbers of these crimes were going unsolved.”

She accused the Met of trying to bury news of the decision, adding: “They claim Trident still exists but it is just a name now.”

She accused the force and Mayor Boris Johnson, who has backed the Met’s decision, of denying issues of race by making the changes.

The decision is said to have shocked detectives on the Trident murder squads who point to a major success rate in solving gun murders.

But Metropolitan Police commander Steve Rodhouse, who is responsible for investigating criminal gangs in London, said the success of Trident means officers can now focus on preventing gang and gun crime.

He said: “The number of people shot and killed through the use of guns has fallen in the last year to only five. Those reductions have allowed us to move 120 murder investigators into pro-active work to further reduce those numbers of people stabbed and shot on the streets of London.”

He said the Met’s main homicide units had always dealt with black-on-black gang murders involving knives.

“These are the majority of gang murders now, so it makes sense to have all murder investigations under one command. The learning that Trident has built up will not be lost.”

The Mayor, speaking on LBC radio, said: “The anti-homicide unit is being done by homicide, but the prevention side of it is still carrying on with Trident and that is the crucial thing — to tackle gun crime in London and knife crime as well.”

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