\n The force’s Operation Jemlock team made 256 arrests during December.\n<\/p>\n
\n The arrests followed police activity in 180 knife and violent crime hotspots.\n<\/p>\n
\n A total of 28 weapons were seized during the month (Image: West Yorkshire Police)\n<\/p>\n
180 knife and violent crime hotspots<\/p>\n
\n Chief Inspector John Paul Berriff, who leads the Jemlock team, said: “Officers from the Jemlock violent crime reduction team worked closely with colleagues this December as part of our Winter of Action to make towns and cities safer.\n<\/p>\n
\n “My officers deployed on a large number of additional patrols in our 180 knife and violent crime hotspots, making a significant number of arrests and recovering dangerous weapons which have no place on our streets.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Jemlock was formed specifically to reduce violent crime, and violent crime involving weapons in particular, so it has been welcome that our Spotlight patrols have resulted in a number of weapon-related arrests and seizures over the last four weeks.”\n<\/p>\n
\n One of the knives found (Image: West Yorkshire Police)\n<\/p>\n
28 weapons seized<\/p>\n
\n A total of 28 weapons were seized during the month, including knives, machetes, and a baseball bat.\n<\/p>\n
\n Spotlight patrols, involving both plain-clothed and uniformed officers, continued throughout December in city and town centres.\n<\/p>\n
\n These patrols focus on nightlife hotspots, with plain-clothed officers on the lookout for potential criminal activity and uniformed officers engaging with persons flagged to them.\n<\/p>\n
Arrests made<\/p>\n
\n Among those detained was a 17-year-old boy in Leeds who was subject to a Community Protection Notice barring him from the city centre.\n<\/p>\n
\n He fled from police, discarding a machete in the process, but was arrested and later jailed for ten months for offences including possession of an offensive weapon.\n<\/p>\n
\n Three other men were arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs, with officers recovering suspected drugs and a knife.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some of the weapons seized (Image: West Yorkshire Police)\n<\/p>\n
New technology used<\/p>\n
\n Operation Jemlock officers also worked alongside police teams using West Yorkshire Police\u2019s new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology for the first time in December.\n<\/p>\n
\n LFR is now deployed in carefully selected authorised locations to identify wanted individuals, missing persons, and those posing a risk to the public.\n<\/p>\n
\n The system uses two clearly marked police vans to scan faces in real time and compare them to an authorised watchlist of individuals of legitimate interest to the police.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alison Lowe, West Yorkshire\u2019s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, OBE, said: “This proactive action from West Yorkshire Police is crucial to our collective efforts in reducing serious violence.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It\u2019s also great to see the use of new technology in supporting our local communities and keeping people safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The force’s Operation Jemlock team made 256 arrests during December. The arrests followed police activity in 180 knife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-680452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115855196633203949","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}