A huge police operation against knife crime was launched last night in London in response to the growing number of teenagers killed on the capital’s streets in recent months.

Scotland Yard announced plans for Operation Blunt 2 as detectives arrested a 19-year-old youth in connection with the death of Jimmy Mizen, 16, who died at the weekend from a wound to his neck in a bakery in southeast London. The man is believed to have given himself up to police in London.

Stop-and-search teams were being deployed to boroughs across the capital last night to do “something significant in tackling the issue of knives being carried in our communities”. Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin, who promised “fairly in-your-face” policing, said: “We really have to do something about carrying weapons on the streets of London, where when you have a barney you stab someone rather than hit them.”

Police had been planning to use stop-and-search teams for some time but it was also “the natural reaction” to the “horrendous events over the last 48 hours”, Mr Godwin said.

Officers will use so-called Section 60 powers, meaning that they will not need the presumption of reasonable suspicion to search someone.

Last year 26 teenagers were killed, 16 with knives. So far this year 13 teenagers have been killed, 9 by knives.

Mr Godwin, talking about the problems in London, said: “The one that is most stubborn for us, and the area of most concern, is the fatalities and stabbings that have been going across London and that have been resistant to our activities.”

Many of the murders were arguments where someone has produced a knife or street robberies that have gone wrong. This, Mr Godwin said, was pushing up the number of homicides involving young people when overall homicide figures for London were falling.

Search teams of 15 officers will use 550 metal-detecting devices and place 244 detection “arches” in areas where intelligence tells them that knives are being carried and youngsters have been involved in knife crime.

Mr Godwin said he wanted to emphasise that the move was not about harassing youngsters. “It is about making people safe in London. If people walk around with knives, your safety is reduced dramatically and you could end up with a knife in you.” Ten London boroughs will have been targeted within a week under the operation. “I see this happening for the long term,” Mr Godwin said. “We have to change the culture. Some young people will say they are carrying knives because they are scared. I think that’s an excuse. We give too many excuses to people carrying knives and we should not.”

Young people were now asking police officers to take action to keep them safe, which should make it easier to win the support of communities across London, he said.

To supplement the operation, officers are being sent to 185 schools to explain to people the dangers of carrying knives.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that the young man who was fatally stabbed in the chest in front of dozens of shoppers in Oxford Street was on bail over two serious offences, one of them a gang rape and the other a gangland knifing. Steven Bigby, from North London, was stabbed on Monday afternoon after an argument with a group of four black men over the throwing of a drink in a McDonald’s restaurant.

He was charged in January with nine others over the rape of a 16-year-old girl. It is believed he was freed from custody only last week.

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Bob Mahoney said: “At around 4.45pm on Monday two groups of black men came together in an altercation during which a drink was thrown. The incident escalated very quickly. Steven was fatally stabbed.

“Early indications show that he died from a single stab wound to the chest. There were at least three people in the victim’s group. A knife was recovered a short distance away.”

The victim’s friends were being interviewed last night to find out what started the altercation.

Mr Mahoney said that tourists taking photographs in the area might hold vital information.

Shortly after this incident a teenager was stabbed on the South London estate where the schoolboy Damilola Taylor was murdered. The 18-year-old victim, who has not been named, was stabbed in the chest in broad daylight on the North Peckham Estate yesterday. Police are hunting a gang of black youths.

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend