STEEL WARRIORS
KNIFE-CHANGING WORK
Steel Warriors is the anti-knife-crime charity turning street knives into free-to-use out door gyms.With three spots in London and plans to expand to other cities, editor Isaac Williams goes behind the bar...
Having lived in the area for a couple of years, and endured last year’s lockdowns in a matchbox-sized flat, Finsbury Park – with its running trail, duck pond and disproportionate number of playgrounds – has become essential for my sanity and general sense of wellbeing. There’s just enough green space to briefly forget you’re in a city of 8.9-million people, and walking around takes a lunchtime-compatible 20-25 minutes. More to the point, there’s even a gym.
Equipped with pullup bars, dip stations and concrete platforms, this free space is the work of Steel Warriors, the charity set up to tackle London’s knifecrime epidemic.
Each month, thousands of knives are taken off the streets, and in just one week from 26 April to 2 May this year, 400 knives were seized. In that same period, 994 knife-crime-related arrests were made.
DCI Gareth Gilbert heads up the Met Police’s Violent Crime Taskforce (VCT). Speaking to My London, he said the issue is city-wide: