A young girl, aged nine, is said to be fighting for her life after a shooting in Hackney, in East London on Wednesday night, which also left three men injured. The girl was having dinner with her family in a restaurant on Kingsland High Street, Dalston, when shots were fired from outside the building around 9:20pm. Three men, aged 26, 37 and 42, were also injured by the gunfire as they sat outside on the pavement. Police are convinced that the shooter rode to the scene on a stolen motorbike. The injured girl and men, who police confirm were not known to each other, are being treated at a hospital.
While visiting the fairly quiet street on Thursday, Hackney’s chief superintendent, James Conway, confirmed that a stolen motorbike was found on nearby property Colvestone Crescent, and hence detectives are treating this as two related crime scenes. The police stated that the incident has shaken them to the core. Conway says the ongoing increase in gun crime appears to be driven by several factors, including gang violence, post-lockdown displacement, and social media’s propensity for brokering drug deals and gang activity through the online realm.
Meanwhile, another local resident, Ayo Adesina, owner of the neighbouring Aso Rock Restaurant, says that he was “stunned” following the incident. The rarity of gun violence on that street stunned residents and the scale of the police response in such a low crime area will also have been surprising to many. The owner of Aso Rock believes that a gun being fired indiscriminately on one of the main high streets of London is dangerous and totally unacceptable. The police have launched an immediate investigation into the shooting and appealed to anyone with information or footage to report it immediately
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