But a couple of weeks ago two young men were killed in an astonishingly brutal murder. They were dragged out of a van and beaten and stabbed to death by about 13 people. It doesn't appear to be a random act - it seems to be Asian* gang warfare. Details are still sketchy.
Then early Friday morning, someone else was stabbed and killed this time near the Underground station. The whole of the main intersection near Tooting Broadway was cordoned off by the police - and remained that way until nearly 8pm last night as crime scene investigators scoured the area. The speculation is that it's related, but no one knows for sure.
The cordon was down when we returned from dinner last night - and special contractors were washing the blood off the pavement.
*ViL: Asian in the English sense, ie south Asian (Pakistan-India-Bangladesh)
5 comments:
I guess that's the cultural difference. Not that many people are brutally knifed in Nashville. Shot,yes,but not stabbed. It seems so much more personal and worse. And you remember that here a murder scene is a 15 minute wonder and no one bothers to clean up. Thanks for the Asian Gang clarification, I was wondering if you guys had Laotian gangs too.
I don't think we have many Laotians in London, there is some east-Asian gang violence though, most notoriously headmaster Philip Lawrence was stabbed to death by a Fillipino youth when he intervened to break up a fight. While there is a sizable Chinese community in London they are mostly law-abiding, as in the USA. I think the Triad organised crime groups are still active in Chinatown but this is not something strangers would ever notice.
BTW re this latest Tooting murder, I've just heard a report that apparently the victim and person arrested were both chefs(!). It happened outside a nice Chinese restaurant we like to go to, hopefully nothing to do with them...
Further update: Coming home last night there was a police "murder board" appealing for info. It gave the name of the victim, something Mediterranean - Portugese Spanish or Italian, not sure which. So it wasn't Chinese chefs anyway...
The person was arrested and charged last tuesday. At least you know crime gets solved quickly.
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