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Crisis talks after knife death at site of Olympic handover party
Felix Allen and Rob Singh, Evening Standard26.08.08
The 2012 host boroughs are set to hold crisis talks on knife crime after an Olympic Games party was scrapped when a teenager was stabbed to death at the site.
Organisers cancelled the handover party in Walthamstow town square after 18-year-old Charles Junior Hendricks was knifed to death only hours before.
Charles, known as CJ, was the 25th teenager to be killed violently in London this year.
Now leaders of the five 2012 host boroughs - Waltham Forest, Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich - are planning a knife-crime summit with police chiefs and Mayor Boris Johnson.
Thousands had been expected to attend the Olympic celebration - one of 30 events to mark the handover of the Olympic flag to London.
Mr Johnson said: "It's an absolute tragedy that another young person has lost their life and especially poignant that it happened on a day when London was looking ahead to the future with such optimism.
"This incident underlines my team's determination to work with London's communities to reduce violent crime among young people."
Police are investigating claims that CJ, from Leytonstone, was the victim of a feud between rival gangs.
• Two young men are seriously ill in hospital with stab wounds after separate attacks.
A man in his twenties was stabbed in Atlantic Road, Brixton, at 6.30am on Sunday, and a 20-year-old was slashed in the neck in a fight outside a club in Edmonton yesterday.
