Bloody cycle of gang violence in London ruins life of 5 year-old girl
"What we are seeing is young men who have no respect for life, their lives or the lives of others"
In the grainy CCTV footage, a little girl is seen playing happily in the aisle of her uncle's corner shop. As she skips towards the doorway, two young men rush in and bundle past her, leaving the child in the direct line of fire of a gunman aiming at them. In the next few seconds, the life of five-year-old Thushara Kamaleswaran, known as Thusha, collided with an escalating feud between two south London street gangs with tragic and lifelong consequences.
As the intended victim cowered behind a drinks stand and the gunman rode off on a bike, Thusha was left lying motionless on the floor. She had been hit in the chest by a bullet that hit her spine and then passed out of her back. She had two heart attacks and medics were forced to carry out emergency surgery at the scene. At one point, she was pronounced clinically dead before doctors managed to revive her at nearby King's College hospital.
Thusha, now six, needs round-the-clock care and is being treated at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire. She will be paralysed for the rest of her life.
The story of the violent feud that led to the shooting of Thusha andanother bystander, 35-year-old Roshan Selvakumar, in March last year is one of shifting rivalries, petty disputes and increasing violence among the teenage gangs that operate in the streets and estates between Brixton and Stockwell in south London. In the past few months, the intensity and pace of the violence has grown. ..
One woman, who works in a shop behind Myatt's Fields, said people were aware of what went on but were too afraid to step in. "Everyone knows what is going on but they won't talk about it, because it is these kids that are running this area and if they find out who has talked it gets very difficult: you get burgled and your family gets attacked," said the woman, who did not want her name to be used.
One Gas member who knows this area well explained how he was "recruited" to the gang aged 12 after being noticed by older members following a series of fights at school. "People think people join gangs for fun but what they don't know is that if you show weakness you can get bullied." He said after the first year at secondary school he felt he had two choices: either join a gang or become a victim: "Who wants to be a victim? If you hear about gang offers you hear about girls, women, reputation. And then you hear 'victim', 'bullying', getting attacked. You pick gangs, anyone would."
The 21-year-old, who says he is now trying to escape the gang life, says he underwent an initiation: "You get recruited and then you give blood. You cut your hand and you make your blood drip on the bandana to show you're loyal." He said the initiation also involved lessons on how and where to stab someone to inflict a specific sort of injury...
For Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, from the Met's homicide team in south London, too often the result of this spontaneous and unpredictable violence is a young boy lying on a mortuary slab. "There is a pressure-cooker atmosphere and the tensions seem to be accentuated by the use of the internet," he said. "If you have a gripe with someone it is played out on Facebook or YouTube, and through your BBM messages. It's not like they can walk away and try to avoid the people you don't want to see – it is all around you. It is all about face, about posturing, about trying to be a man, and once it has started it is hard to de-escalate it."
McFarlane has successfully put several members of Gas behind bars and his investigation into Zac Olumegbon's murder in July 2010 uncovered a chilling level of premeditation and planning by his assailants. The five killers, all aged between 16 and 18, had met up the night before to plan the attack. They arrived the following day at Park Campus school in West Norwood, south London, in a stolen car, carrying at least two knives. Four of them chased Zac down, in a pursuit filmed on CCTV until they headed down an alley, and overcame him in the back garden of a house, stabbing him repeatedly, before fleeing. The five were jailed for the killing last December. Read more:
Also see: When the city streets are visited by sudden death: Nine teenagers have been killed in gang violence in London so far this year. Here, an Observer photographer tells how he has come face to face with the nihilistic brutality of the city: The nine murders related to teenage gangs, often involving a knifing, are different. While many of the scenes of murder I have documented have been acts that have been silent and discreet, these are crimes that have taken place in plain view. The killing in Welling took place in broad daylight. Like the stabbing in the park in Stoke Newington, it showed a disturbing lack of concern over the prospect of getting caught. Indeed, most of the murders are usually declared "solved" in a handful of days – even if many have yet to come to court.
I have been struck by the correlation between London's most economically deprived areas – its east and south – and the murder trail that I have followed. Struck, too, by how many of the dead young men caught up in gang violence have been of Afro-Caribbean origin.
Most depressing of all is the knowledge that most of these young men are part of what I fear is a growing underclass, failed both by education and their parents, part of a lost youth whose lives and deaths are largely invisible. Although perhaps fewer than one in 100 becomes involved in gangs and violence, without opportunities they have become part of a defeated generation. And I know that by the time the year ends, another 60 people could have lost their lives through murder.
And: Three members of a street gang responsible for killing three teenagers in 20 months have been convicted of shooting a five-year-old girl and leaving her paralysed for life: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/26/three-guilty-shooting-girl-paralysed
