Police investigating the Waltham Forest stabbing are treating the incident as a targeted attack.
A 14-year-old boy died on Tuesday after he was stabbed by attackers who are believed to have knocked him off his moped, Scotland Yard confirmed.
Officers were called to Bickley Road, Leyton, in Waltham Forest, shortly before 6.30pm to reports of a road traffic collision.
The Metropolitan Police said the teenager was found with stab wounds, and detectives have established he was riding a moped that had been involved in a collision with a car.
Chief Superintendent Richard Tucker said: “Everyone is shocked and appalled by this murder. The age of the victim, a boy aged 14, beggars belief and I completely understand the alarm and concern it has raised from those who live and work in the area.
“A crime scene remains in place today as officers continue their painstaking work to piece together the details of the attack. A section 60 was put in place following this incident and is being continually reviewed.
“My officers will be out working to support investigators today and be there to talk to the public and listen to the concerns they have.”
The police chief urged the local community “to be patient and cooperate where possible with the work detectives are getting on with in the area”, explaining that neighbourhood patrols will be stepped up and police presence increased.
A crime scene remains in place and police are appealing for information and witnesses, including anyone with dash-cam footage, to come forward.
Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy released a statement about the incident on her Facebook page.
“Walthamstow apologies for the radio silence as know rightly how distressed and worried we all are about youth violence,” she wrote, and said she had spent the morning talking to a range of organisations and police.
“I am clear that the causes of the deliberate death of a child require more than enforcement.”
While fellow MP John Cryer, who represents the neighbouring constituency, told HuffPost UK he was “shocked and saddened” to learn of the teenager’s death and called on the government to “address this urgently”.
He said: “I cannot begin to imagine what his loved ones are going through at the moment.
“Youth violence is at epidemic level and we simply cannot carry on like this. The police urgently need more resources to get to grips with the immediate problem.
“Prevention is better than the cure, and local authorities need to be given the funding to sustain long-term schemes to keep young people away from violence.”
Declaring that “these senseless acts of violence must end”, the leader of Waltham Forest Council, Clare Coghill, directly appealed to members of the community to help police with their investigation.
“The murder of a 14-year-old boy is an appalling act and we must come together as a community to bring those responsible to justice,” she told HuffPost UK.
“There will be members of our community who know, or suspect that they know, what happened to this child. You need to come forward; to stay silent is to support murderers.
“The police cannot tackle the violence on our streets alone. Everyone has a role to play in fighting crime and bringing those responsible to justice. Without information these murderers will be free to do this again.”
Coghill said the tragedy would be felt right across the borough, adding that “the death of a child is a loss that no parent or family should ever have to face”.
Following the incident, a man who did not want to be named described how a witness came into the premises where he works nearby, clearly disturbed by what they had seen.
He said the witness described how the 14-year-old driving the moped was struck by a car which was travelling in the opposite direction.
“They said they knocked him off the moped and four people got out of the car and they stabbed him seven times – there were unsurvivable wounds in his back,” he said.
He added that the witness recalled how the boy was possibly unconscious when he was stabbed, with his helmet thrown up to 10 metres away.
“He thought it was an accident, that somebody had knocked someone, but then he said they quickly came (out of the car),” the man added.
“They beat him up, and they stabbed him, and they left.”