Met Police Commissioner criticises Green party leader for retweet after Golders Green stabbings

The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, thoughtlessly undermined the confidence of officers to deal with dangerous people by sharing a critical social media post after the Golders Green stabbings, according to the head of the Metropolitan police.

Officers were filmed detaining the suspect after two Jewish people were stabbed in the north-west London suburb on Wednesday. Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X alleging that officers "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head" when he was already incapacitated by the stun gun.

In a letter to Polanski, the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, described the claim as "inaccurate and misinformed commentary". He praised the officers as "nothing short of extraordinary", adding: "Without their efforts to stop him, I dread to think what the outcome could have been."

Speaking on Friday morning, Rowley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the letter was not an "intervention to politics" and expanded on his criticism of Polanski. He said: "I'm simply dealing with operational policing and defending my officers because I want them to have confidence to protect Londoners … Officers need confidence in confronting these dangerous people, and if an eminent person thoughtlessly steps into that and undermines that, then I'm going to deal with that."

He added: "Of course there will always be inaccuracies, eccentricities and nonsense online. But when someone eminent puts something out there, which goes fundamentally to the confidence in my officers to act in the protection of London, when we've had two officers confront someone they believe to be a terrorist, who wasn't complying and they were afraid he might have an explosive device – can you imagine fear and how difficult it is to deal with? I've sat down with those officers when they're in shock after the event. Those officers need to know they've got my support, and public support, when they do that.

"If someone wants to step on to my responsibilities of operation policing, I will deal with that assertively like I did in this case. And I'm really grateful for the hundreds of thousands of members of the public who've commented online in support of those officers, that's really appreciated."

A Green party source said: "Zack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn't know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response."

On Wednesday, the Green party condemned the incident as "an appalling act of antisemitic violence. Jewish people deserve safety and belonging wherever they live and we stand in solidarity with the British Jewish community."

Rowley also said the Met required an additional 300 officers to establish a permanent solution for protecting Jewish communities in London. The victims minister, Alex Davies-Jones, declined to give a timeline for a response to that request. She told Times Radio: "Discussions will be ongoing with the home secretary, and I know that she is taking extremely seriously.

"She was in Golders Green this week, she's working with Sir Mark Rowley and she hears his calls for more officers, as she does across England and Wales. It's important that we get it right and we get the effective resourcing where we need it."

Davies-Jones said she agreed with Rowley's warning of a growing "pandemic" of antisemitism in the UK. "I think there is a current level of antisemitism in the country that is totally intolerable and we need direct action," she added.