Ali Hassan Ali was a police Officer with the Metropolitan Police who put the community firmly first. Raised on a council estate and still living on a council estate, Ali knows his community and most importantly how to communicate with them.

He was a Response Officer based at Camden and Islington and one who decided to tackle knife crime by talking to his locals and getting their help in stopping this awful nightmare affecting our youths everyday.

Ali once stood on a cordon after a youth had been stabbed to death and watched as the youth’s  mother arrive crying, “I have never heard a cry as awful as I did that day. The sound that came from that mother was unimaginable pain, it was a desperate cry that came from so deep within. It was more than just a cry. The pain and anguish she felt was heartbreaking.  She told me that she had given birth to him, held him close to her chest, raised him and now she had seen his young life ended.I knew then that I had to do something about this.”

Ali made it his mission to engage with his community and gain their trust and start to work together to tackle this nightmare blighting our streets everyday.  His passion comes from the community, and when he finishes his shift and goes home, his neighbours tell him their problems and what they would like to see and he listen to them.

Ali has since quit as a police officer to start his own initiative to combat violent crime as he criticised the force for being “20 years behind”.

He joined the force wanting a change from his day job at National rail–and a role that would contribute to making a difference in the lives of young people, but he said increasing violent crime in London made him want to do more and believes there is a culture that needs to change for sure and that culture that everyone talks about is embodied in some inspectors and its preventing officers like himself from being happy for long and preventing them from connecting with communities they should be serving.

People who have really supported Ali in his previous role as an officer will know that he’s critical of the organisation because he cares enough to want to make a change.  Although he agreed with the force’s plan to increase the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic officers, he believes that without a change in culture you could see more people leaving, and Ali is focused on making change.  His initiative, dubbed ‘Chapter 1’, was set up during the pandemic and aims to “break the circuit” between young people and crime.

Ali saw a lot of cases where young people felt they had to carry knives or they’re in gangs because of various reasons and he was tired of seeing these youngsters–who were really smart when spoken to, suddenly having knives on them and resorting to violence, he  just wanted to divert them and guide them and say, ‘look, you can do better than this, is this life worth it’?

Despite his departure, he said as well as working closely with councils he understands how “crucial” it is to find ways his organisation can work with the police in some capacity.

Chapter 1 is set on expanding its team including bringing in more women who can engage with the girls, who are “often under the radar.”

During the course of the pandemic, it was revealed that girls as young as 14 were being used by gangs and many were coerced to carry contraband for ‘elders’.  1,200 online grooming crimes were recorded by police across the UK during the April to June lockdown period while the National Youth Agency reported in June that there was an increased concern around the use of girls for gang activity.