By James Simons-
A teenager has died after being shot in the head last night, shortly after 7pm.
The 18-year-old victim, named locally as David aka ‘Dutch’, was gunned down at St Ann’s in Barking. A 20 year old has been arrested in connection with the killing, and a murder investigation is underway.
Cops, firearms officers, and the London Ambulance Service rushed to the scene, where the victim was speedily taken to Newham General Hospital. Barking is meant to be one of the least violent parts of East London, but in the last few years it has become gang ridden, with spates of violence occurring every so often.
The cause of the killing is not known, but many locals believe most shootings in the area to be drug related. 22 year old Latisha Moss told the eye of media.com ” Barking has a lot of respectable professionals based here, but you get these group of youths who hang around in street corners doing drugs.
”You wonder what they get up to, and when a group of boys assemble often to do drugs, it doesn’t take much imagination what else they may get up to. It makes each member of the group potentially prone to serious disputes, especially in this day and age where youths are quick to pay loyalties to their peers no matter what those peers are involved in”.
Guns are relatively easy to pick up in London, as most people at least know someone who can supply them a gun for a set price, or even free as a favour sometimes. The general feeling is that most gun crimes involving youths are related to drugs directly or indirectly, with innocent people sometimes caught up in tense disputes that can sometimes cost them their lives just because of their affiliation. Their is no suggestion the teenage victim here was involved in drugs.
Other common reasons for gun crimes in London include money owed even when unrelated to drugs, post code wars, over youths form a rival area floating around in an area they are not ‘permitted’ to be by their rivals. 24 year old Malcom Right shed some further light into the spate of killings in London.
Speaking to the eye of media.com outside a convenient store in Plaistow. Right said :
”Its pretty peak( serious) out here in East London. Just about anything can be blown out of proportion and lead to a serious conflict. It is unbelievable what some people are prepared to do just to let of their steam or get even or settle a score with someone. There are people who offer money to people to set up their own friends by tricking them somewhere, or
sometimes even disclosing their address. Settling a score can include anything from a gang attack, stabbing, or shooting. There is no telling what will happen once a person is delivered up to his enemies. The worst thing about it is that when the damage is done, the same people who paid for the set up usually end of leaking their source of information, exposing them to serious reprisals in the process”.
ATTACK
”There are people who threaten to attack people’s family sometimes if a debt is not paid, and the very threat sometimes can lead to the indebted person launching a deadly attack first. Nobody gives much thought to who is right or wrong in a dispute, it’s all about who can get the upper hand and who has more contacts to end up looking the big man. It’s sad really”. Teenage killings in London happen right through the year, starting from the new year most years.
APPETITE
The appetite for diplomatic reasoning and discussions aimed at diffusing disagreements are rarely present among youths who either have no brains, or don’t use them. College students are generally the smarter bunch of teenagers, but many of them choose to associate with no hopers whose lives revolve around violence and who have no sense of direction or ambition. Sometimes, the innocent college student gets caught up by befriending a college student who has half of his leg in college and the other half immersed deeply in the dangerous affairs of street life.
The only type of relative safety for London teenagers is for them to associate only with individuals who keep themselves distant from the bad boys. Many times, this proves difficult, as most college students don’t want to appear recluse or unsociable, so befriend anybody close to them, and freely mix in the same parties and clubs. This can have deadly risks.
The eye of media.com send our condolences to the family of the victim, who must be in a deep state of shock and mourning at this difficult time.