I thought stringent gun controls PREVENTED stuff like this. Hmmmm....
And yet their only answer is to call for MORE gun control!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/15/nguns15.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_15022007
Third schoolboy shot dead within a fortnight
By Stephanie Condron, Martin Beckford and John Steele
Last Updated: 8:50am GMT 15/02/2007
Video: Another tragic victim
Police in crisis meeting after shootings
A 15-year-old schoolboy yesterday became the third teenager to be shot dead in south London within a fortnight.
A police van near the spot where the boy was shot
The latest shooting has led Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to call for an urgent meeting of commanders and murder squad detectives.
Police were called to the teenager's home in Clapham, just after school closing time at around 3.40pm yesterday to find the boy fatally wounded. The boy, who is believed to have a white father and a Thai mother, was first found by a family member.
Last night Christina Piludu, 35, a neighbour, paid tribute to the dead schoolboy who she said was named "Billy".
"He was like a kid, he was like a baby. I'm disgusted and furious," she said. "His parents must have been proud of him. He was always playing on his bike and football. He was a very good kid."
The latest shooting in south London follows the murders of two other teenagers including James Smartt-Ford, 16, shot twice by a gunman at Streatham Ice Arena on Feb 3.
Three days later, 15-year-old Michael Dosunmu who was described as "easy going", was shot dead as he slept in his bedroom in Peckham.
His home was just yards from the spot where 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was stabbed to death with a broken bottle in 2000.
Last night, it was unclear exactly how the latest schoolboy to be murdered was killed and he had yet to be named.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Police were called to an address in Fenwick Place.
"A 15-year-old who was suffering from gunshot wounds was found and he has died."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/15/nguns115.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_15022007
Police in crisis meeting after shootings
By Stephanie Condron
Last Updated: 8:49am GMT 15/02/2007
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, does not often call crisis meetings of murder squad detectives to discuss ways of solving a single crime.
But this morning he and some of his most experienced ?- and hard-pressed ?- officers will be asking themselves whether the latest murder of a teenager in south London is linked in any way to other recent killings in the area.
advertisement
While the Government and Scotland Yard have been keen to emphasise that gun crime is falling, the statistics of the past fortnight do little to reassure parents that their children are safe.
Javarie Crighton, 21, was fatally stabbed in Southampton Way in Peckham on Feb 3. A man has been charged with his murder.
James Smartt-Ford, 16, was murdered later that day. He was shot twice by a gunman at Streatham Ice Rink.
Michael Dosunmu, a 15-year-old boy described as "peace-loving" by his family, was shot several times in the early hours two days later, as he lay in his bed at his home in Peckham.
That killing prompted an "emergency" meeting attended by Chief Supt Malcolm Tillyer, the Southwark police commander, Harriet Harman MP and Helen Ball, commander of Operation Trident.
But their meeting could do nothing to stop the next schoolboy death ?- that yesterday of Billy Cox.
Sir Ian is aware of how crucial it is to find a way forward while so many recent murders remain unsolved. Commentators have referred to it as a "crisis" meeting but it might more aptly be called a "brainstorming" session.
Officers will be deciding which police squad will investigate Billy's murder. Although Billy was of mixed race ?- his father was white and his mother Thai ?- the Met has indicated that Operation Trident, which investigates "black-on-black" shootings, will probably investigate. The Met has said that is because he was the victim of a shooting but it also suggests that they believe his killer could be linked to other crimes being investigated by Operation Trident, which typically centre on drug-related violence.
"We would like to reassure the communities in South London that we are taking the current situation very seriously and are doing everything in our power to find those responsible," Scotland Yard said in a statement last night.
Lucy Cope, founder of the campaign group Mothers Against Guns, said: "It's ridiculous. We have to do something.
"How many more deaths is it going to take before someone says to Tony Blair or Ian Blair, 'We've had enough, let's do something about this?' "