{"id":559887,"date":"2026-05-01T03:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559887\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T03:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:57:10","slug":"zack-polanskis-criticism-of-golders-green-attack-arrest-will-have-chilling-effect-says-met-chief-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559887\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski\u2019s criticism of Golders Green attack arrest will have \u2018chilling effect\u2019, says Met chief | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Metropolitan police chief has said that Green party leader Zack Polanski sharing a post about the arrest of the Golders Green terror suspect<\/a> will have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d.<\/p>\n

Met officers arrested a 45-year-old man after two Jewish people were stabbed in the suburb of north-west London<\/a> on Wednesday. Police said the suspect was shot with a stun gun to subdue him.<\/p>\n

The incident is being treated as terrorism and police have been in discussions about the case with lawyers at the Crown Prosecution Service, which authorises criminal charges in England and Wales.<\/p>\n

Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X accusing officers on the scene of \u201crepeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head\u201d when he was already incapacitated from being Tasered.<\/p>\n

However, the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley<\/a>, said in a letter to the Green party leader that he believed the post was \u201cinaccurate and misinformed commentary\u201d and that police officers \u201care nothing short of extraordinary\u201d, saying: \u201cWithout their efforts to stop him I dread to think what the outcome could have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cLondon\u2019s Jewish communities are scared. They have experienced a series of targeted attacks on the community, and they expect our officers to act, protect them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is exactly what our officers did yesterday. Your decision to criticise these officers, using your public profile and reach, will have a chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowley wrote: \u201cThe officers confronted a dangerous man they believed to be a terrorist, who refused to show his hands, who was violent and who continued to pose a clear threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

His letter also calls for solidarity from political leaders, stating: \u201cThat solidarity matters, and at this moment we need politicians and community leaders to be at the forefront of it, not only condemning the horrific attacks but by taking leadership in confronting antisemitism and permissive rhetoric, lowering tensions and backing those who are willing to step in to protect the public and reassure the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Green party<\/a> source said: \u201cZack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, after the attacks in Golders Green took place, the Green party released a statement saying: \u201cThis was 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan police chief has said that Green party leader Zack Polanski sharing a post about the arrest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-559887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}