Postcode wars. Wars, as in, with guns.

[dryfter]

Two shooting incidents
Postcode wars on the rise in Hackney

Technically that mob was in Islington, but it's fairly close to the border with Hackney. I wonder if the E8 vs E5 gangs mentioned have spread out into N1 (where I live) as well?

Comments

[busty-st-clair.livejournal.com]

Not too much, went on a seven week backpacking expedition, have returned to Australia for a bit. Considering going to Japan for a little bit. Looking for work, BDO on friday which was good, doing all the local gigs and settling back in general I guess. Oh, and I got a myspace, tragic indeed. At least my haircut sucks so I don't feel like I'm in the in-group online!!

You?

[jackrivet.livejournal.com]

I keep seeing grafiti in my area for E11 and E10 cliques. And there is some bunch called the Rokeby (sp?) Boys (after Rokeby Boys School).

I tend to keep the fuck out of Clapham and Dalston, but I've got a strange feeling that if I were to find myself there, I might be saved by the fact that I clearly don't belong in either Clapham or Dalston.

A theory which I'm not eager to test : )

-Jack

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

I lived in Dalston for six months in 2003, and I never had a problem. I did see dodgy looking stuff going on, but I had a very strong feeling that they were not interested in hassling outsiders, and in fact would probably prevent non-gang-members from hassling strangers, as they didn't want police to come into the area.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The first of those shootings is heroically incompetent: two of them, two guns, dragged the target out of the car and shot him twice... And he's been released from hospital already. Still, they'll get more practice in: I doubt that the police will make much headway with all the effort they've put into alienating the community... If the word 'community' has any meaning among the denizens of Hackney.

As for the territorial warfare, that's been happening a long, long time: teenage gangs on the estates have always had their 'manor', their 'end', their street, and a serious beating awaited any kid who wandered in. The stabbings are new, and represent a clear failure of policing and deterrent sentencing; the firearms mark the transition from being teenage gangs posing, fighting a bit and committing petty crimes to drug-dealing and fencing - adult crimes with the money and the incentives to keep firearms and use them.

The transition from defending territory against other teenagers - rivals in the juvenile posing - to attacking any and all strangers has already happened in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, where parts of Slater Street and the blocks south of Bethnal Green Road are owned by Bangladeshi gangs and white, black or Hindu faces are an invitation to menaces and a warning to leave, if you're lucky. It marks a complete breakdown of policing, the sense that the streets are patrolled and subject to the rule of law; The Met can and still - occasionally - will conduct investigations and send in a team to make an arrest, so they can claim that there's no 'No Go' zone. But the State's monopoly of violence and any claim by the Metropolitan Police that they are act as guardian of the public is a laughable fiction.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think the people who have some sense that it's not ok to take over a street for their personal grudges should move out of London, and we should build a big wall around it, and throw in some food now and again until it stops disappearing. Then the mobs and chavs can just shoot each other and everybody else will be fine, as long as we make sure the decent people have the information and are able to get out.