“The prospect of an armed police service moved a step closer yesterday when Scotland Yard announced the formation of a new firearms unit that will routinely patrol gun crime hotspots in London,” Times Online informs Oct. 23.

“The team is drawn from the CO19, the Metropolitan Police specialist firearms unit, members of which shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station after mistaking him for a suicide bomber in 2005.

The armed patrols are being deployed after a dramatic rise in gun crime. They will target key areas in North London, where Turkish gangs are engaged in a bloody turf war, and south of the Thames, where gangland shooting incidents have soared.

Scotland Yard said that the armed patrols began in June, on a trial basis, with a team of 21 officers. That number is set to double next month,” the source reads.