Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has told Sky News that stop and search operations could be stepped up in problem areas of the capital after a huge rise in knife crime.
Thirty people have been stabbed to death in London so far in 2017, a rise of almost a third from 23 during the same period in 2016.
In the last four weeks alone, there have been 14 deaths.
A record 300 knives were seized in seven days by officers across the capital.
Scotland Yard has set up a specialist task force to combat the problem, with community leaders claiming some children as young as six are carrying knives.
On a week in which there were three knife killings, Sky News gained exclusive access to the Met's elite gang units, tasked with getting knives and other dangerous weapons off the streets.
Plain-clothed officers in south and west London targeted known gang members and made several knife-related arrests.
Ms Dick said one of her biggest challenges as the UK's most senior officer was tackling knife crime, and indicated the likelihood that stop and search might have to be increased in the worst areas.
She told Sky News: "Stop and search is a very important tactic - it's a very important power for officers and has been hugely powerful in the fight so far against knife crime.
"Thousands and thousands of people have been stopped and successfully searched, where a knife has been recovered.
"So of course I want it to continue and if it increases, because that is the best way that people are finding to reduce knife crime, and to stop young people suffering life-changing injuries, or even being killed, then I will absolutely support it and explain why we've had an increase."
The Commissioner vowed to get to the root of knife crime as she visited a youth centre, where she met the family of 20-year-old Lewis Elwin, who was stabbed to death in Tooting, south London, in 2016.
His killer has not been caught.
His eldest brother, Byron Douglas-Letts, said: "It's frightening knowing someone can commit such an offence, such an act of violence, but yet no one has been caught, and this is just one case - these cases are popping up everywhere now."
(Excerpt from newspaper article)
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