march being "A good day". A few weeks later, the police arrested some of the march organizers and charged them with the offence of riot, but they were later acquitted. In 1980, the number of crimes recorded in the Lambeth borough was 30,805, with 10,626 of those taking place in the Brixton Division. Between 1976 and 1980, Brixton accounted for 35% of all crimes in the Borough, but 49% of all robbery and violent theft offences. The police recognised the rising crime: at the beginning of April, the Metropolitan Police began Operation Swamp 81, a plainclothes operation to reduce crime (named after prime minister Margaret Thatcher's 1978 assertion that the UK "might be rather swamped by people of a different culture"), and uniformed patrols were increased in the area. Officers from other Metropolitan police districts and the Special Patrol Group were dispatched into Brixton, and within five days, 943 people were stopped and searched, with 82 arrested, through the heavy use of what was colloquially known as the "Sus law." This referred to powers under the Vagrancy Act 1824, which allowed police to search and arrest members of the public when it was believed that they were acting suspiciously, and not necessarily committing a crime. The African-Caribbean community accused the police of disproportionately using these powers against black people. 10–11 April Public disfavour came to a head on Friday 10 April. At around 5:15pm a police constable spotted a black youth named Michael Bailey running towards him, apparently away from three other black youths. Bailey was stopped and found to be badly bleeding, but broke away from the constable. Stopped again on Atlantic Road, Bailey was found to have a four-inch stab wound. He ran into a flat and was helped by a family and the police constable there by putting kitchen roll on his wound. A crowd gathered and, as the police then tried to take the wounded boy to a waiting minicab on Railton Road, the crowd tried to intervene thinking the police did not appear to be providing or seeking the medical help Bailey needed quickly enough. As the minicab pulled away at speed a police car arrived and stopped the cab. When an officer from the police car realised Bailey was wounded he moved him into the back of the police car to take him to hospital more quickly, and bound his wound more tightly to