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Homicide and Major Crime Command

operational command unit of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, United Kingdom

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ16994235 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Homicide and Major Crime Command (SCO 1) is an Operational Command Unit of the Metropolitan Police responsible for the investigation of homicide and other serious crimes in London. Most of their work was carried out by major investigation teams (MITs), of which there were 24. It was formerly known as the Homicide and Serious Crime Command (SCD 1).

As of May 2018, there were 722 personnel in SCO 1, including 540 police officers and 182 civilian staff.

Major investigation teams

Major investigation teams (MITs) are the specialised homicide squads of the Homicide and Major Crime Command—there are twenty-four MITs within the MPS. MITs investigate cases of murder, manslaughter, attempted murder where the evidence of intended threat and other investigations identified for specialist needs.

MITs were established in 2000 to replace the former Area Major Incident Pools (AMIPs) as part of the MPS's Serious Crime Group. In 2001, there were thirty-one murder investigation teams operating in London, made up of eight hundred and thirty-four police officers, one hundred and eighty-two civilian staff, and fourteen senior detectives.

Currently, all homicide investigation in London is undertaken by the Specialist Crime and Operations Directorate's Homicide Command, which is split geographically into five units (West, Central, East, North and South), each led by a Detective Superintendent. Each of the Command Units has four Major Investigation Teams (MITs), consisting of fifty staff, led by a Detective Chief Inspector (DCI), who performs the role of senior investigating officer (SIO).

Other units

In addition to the MITs, the Homicide and Serious Crime Command also had five citywide units:

The Central Criminal Court Trials Unit worked with the MITs and Crown Prosecution Service on cases that go to trial at the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Homicide and Major Crime Command” as operational command unit of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Homicide, Major and Crime.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2018, 2000, 2001—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Homicide, Major and Crime providing the first useful test.
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Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16994235. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2018, 2000 and 2001.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Homicide and Major Crime Command” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.