150 Lives Later: Revisiting the issue of Knife Crime in Sadiq Khan's London
May 2023. For some, a joyous month. Three bank holiday weekends, the beginning of warmer weather and the start of summery activities. With tens of thousands of people travelling into London for the coronation of the new monarch and other related events, the weekend saw our much beloved capital city step into the international spotlight once again. And yet, in the same beloved city, away from patriotic celebrations, street parties and national anthems, violence ripped across East London as a series of shootings and stabbings occurred. On the eve of the coronation alone, three unrelated attacks would take place in the span of just 8 hours. Each one of these attacks would result in the loss of a young life. A train-station in Dagenham. A doorstep in Hackney. A secondary school in Walthamstow. These were the locations where Jordan Kukabu, 18, Sebastian Zon, 27, and Renell Charles, 15, would take their final breaths. Renell's death marked the 150th teenager to be murdered as a result o...