The Metropolitan Police commissioner, Mark Rowley, has said that Green Party leader Zack Polanski sharing a post about the arrest of a terror suspect in Golders Green will have a “chilling effect”. The comment follows an incident on Wednesday in which two Jewish people were stabbed in the north-west London suburb. Officers shot a 45-year-old man with a stun gun to subdue him, and the case is being treated as terrorism.
Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X accusing officers of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” while he was incapacitated after being Tasered. Rowley, in a letter to Polanski, described the post as “inaccurate and misinformed commentary”. He said the officers’ efforts were “nothing short of extraordinary” and added: “Without their efforts to stop him I dread to think what the outcome could have been.”
Rowley wrote that the officers had been confronted by a dangerous man they believed to be a terrorist, who refused to show his hands, was violent and continued to pose a clear threat. He also emphasised the fear within London’s Jewish communities, saying they had experienced a series of targeted attacks and expected officers to protect them. His letter called for solidarity from politicians, urging them to confront antisemitism and permissive rhetoric.
A Green Party source responded by saying Polanski had seen the video like everyone else and did not know the full picture, but acknowledged it was a difficult situation for the authorities. The source added that more needed to be understood about the response. The party had earlier issued a statement condemning the stabbings as an “appalling act of antisemitic violence”.
