just some kids with guns
i was woken about 4am last night by a huge rabble of noise, commotion and adrenalin fueled shouting by what sounded like a huge number of youths. By the time i woke, realised it wasn’t a dream and got up to look, the sound was disappearing off into the distance and i didn’t think anything more of it. When i went out this morning however, the street round the corner was taped off and two policemen were standing in the street looking bored, i asked one of them what had happened and he said ‘oh just some kids with guns’
maybe i’m reading too much into this response, but the nonchalant nature of it does seem to say a lot about the attitude of police to crime in certain areas of london - the policy seems to be more about containment of crime to certain areas rather than the eradication of it. This same street was the street that the weapons of the three men who murdered Warren Gray were discarded as they fled from the scene , and it’s also just round the corner from where convicted rapist John McGrady who had a twenty year history of attacking & raping young women was sent to live by the authorities upon his last release from jail and where he took the life of 15 year old Rochelle Holnes by abducting her, strangling her and dismembering her body with a hacksaw and placing the parts in five bin bags scattered around the milford towers estate
The policeman didn’t ask if i’d seen anything or didn’t seem interested in what I told him about what i’d heard in the night, is this indicatative of just this one person or the borough’s wider attitude to crime & anti social behavior in ‘lost’ parts of london?
For years we’ve heard rhetoric from police & council about them taking some responsibility for sorting out the many problems around milford towers but all we’ve seen in reality is a policy of containment in action.
A few comments from local residents set the scene:-
One man, in his 50s, of Silvermere Road, said:They need to do something about that block - the East Block. They are mugging old ladies coming home from church. It used to be quiet but now it’s horrible.
A 37-year-old woman, of Doggett Road, said: There’s always something going on here.This place is getting worse and worse. The youngsters cause the problems here. If the Government doesn’t do something things are going to get much worse.”
An 18-year-old boy, of Nelgarde Road, said: “You see a lot of shady men hanging about. There’s a lot of stuff that goes down. Obviously there’s a lot of people doing stuff in that building that don’t live in that building. Of couse you see a lot of police but not like now, not since that girl died
[Rochelle’s mother, commenting after the latest murder] It’s like I’m reliving my nightmare all over again.I came here to make sure it wasn’t another child. I feel so sick to my stomach as it is reminding me of the sheer horror of my daughter’s death.I was told the police would clean up this estate. I can’t believe they have not put better security there. They should have police patrolling on the estate after my daughter.They didn’t expect another murder to happen. But I knew in my gut something was going to happen. It makes me feel so angry. I’m fuming with the law.”
[Rochelle’s mother on John McGrady] We question why we do not have the right to know about these dangerous people living among us, until they have committed such dreadful acts.
I lived and worked in Catford from the age of 2yrs until I was 46yrs. I no longer ’survive’ there but chose to move on and ‘live’ somewhere else. In previous years I’ve known children with a gun and live ammunition to be firing at passing cars. My own wife was attacked with a knife outside Milford Towers and robbed (the police at the time suggested moving away being the best course of action). I can recall one incident which both amused and frightened me. Youths at the top of Milford Tower were hurling concrete slabs onto people below who were coming out of the car park towards Holbeach Road. A slab that would have either killed my wife or I if it had hit us landed at our feet. Fearing some other unfourtuate soul would not be so lucky I rang the police. They did respond an hour or so later. However, without bothering to get out of his police car the lone police officer explained he could do nothing as he was on his own. When a chunk of concrete landed on the roof of the police car he accelerated off down the road never to be seen again. All that could be heard was the laughter of the yobs above… and you wonder why crime in Catford is as bad as it is?
I agree that the estate should be demolished. It is an eye sore and the level of crime is just ridiculous. How many more people will be killed before something is actually done? Please write to Jim Dowd MP and Steve Bullock calling on them to take action.
In time, the gangs will turn new housing estates into ghettos.
I lived and grew up in the area and use to playing in the car park and i would never allow my kids out to play in there. I have seen milford towers go down hill over the years . Ive seen dealers selling weed and seen it progress to crack . I belive the towers need to be knock down as policing , or cameras will never stop what goes on up there
That place is a disgrace I live next to Milford Towers I have been gang mugged in the surrounding roads and beaten absolutely black and blue yet they are still doing nothing about that hell hole probably won’t it’s not high enough priority as no one seemingly in the public spotlight has suffered at the hands of the mindless stupid idiots that cause trouble there
I work in Catford Shopping centre, I am afraid to work here now.
I am a postman in catford & sometimes i have to do milford towers, thats the only one i feel uncomfortable about doing, i know the blocks like the back of my hand but for an emergency service to go in there, they would be lost including the police so i dont even think the residents feel safe in there own home
A friend of mine was recently housed on that estate and trust me he can handle his own and he is scared everytime he leaves his house so can u imagine how vulnurable peolpe with families and elderly people feel
Steve Bullock!! I hope you take the time to read these comments. You should make it a priority of your administration to demolish Milford Towers and regenerate the centre of Catford. I feel disgusted by the lack of action from our politicians regarding this disgraceful estate
Lewisham is letting its people down, crime is rife, street muggings are becoming something to expect.Children are being kicked out of schools then left to wander the streets, kids are treated as lesser beings, families have broken down. fathers are absent, mothers are struggling to keep control. Single mums blamed for wrongs, when society creates a system thats better for the single person. Love is lacking in our society. Kids are being raised by drug addicted parents who show the kids no love, the kids get ignored at school no one picks up on their suffering. Some kids grow to believe they have no hope no prospects. There is lack of extended families and people that care in the community.
just some kids with guns
May 31st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Another experience I’ve had (in New Cross) is waking up in the night with the police helicopter overhead looking outside seeing eight police cars, armed cops everywhere who told me to go back inside - then just as suddenly disappearing with no explanation. I think we all get used to a certain level of violence on our doorsteps until it affects us personally, but I wonder about my kids growing up to think it’s normal to have yellow boards for murder at the top of the road. Don’t have any solutions though - not convinced its more and heavier policing and not sure what the council could do about it either. The only urban area I’ve spent time in where this wasn’t a problem was West Belfast in the early 1990s where anti-social crime was rare - albeit at the cost of having lots of other kids with guns running around.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Two weeks ago I crossed path with a bunch of kids, mostly girls, it was near the running track, one had a brick in his hand and I thought “he won’t be that stupid”, as we crossed I saw the brick falling from above my head, in front of my face and down on the ground in front of me.
I challenged him and a girl came at me and said “hey, you don’t speak to him like that!”. Two days ago I met the kid that threw the brick again and this time he was with two adults, two women, it was at Tesco at Milford Towers and as I realized that he was accompanied by the two women I went there and asked if they knew his parents (it was obvious that they were not his parents as they were of completely different colour), they said yes and I said to the kid “do you want to tell them?”, so he did, one of the two women was quite upset with the child and asked if he had apologized, at that point the child mumbled what I suppose was an apology and the other woman turned towards me and said “here you go, you have your apology now!”.
Now, as the point was not that I needed an apology from a nine year old but that a nine year old had to understand his mistake, the comment of this woman undid everything with a single stroke. I thought that it would have been even less educational to have an additional argument with huge potential of turning nasty in front of children so I left.
Anyway, this episode tells me quite a lot about the kind of mentoring that many kids have today.
The Council, and the Government, and anybody else with some responsibility on those matters should try to promote activities for deprived children where they can engage with adults so that they can learn something from people other than their parents because often those parents (or their friends) do not have adequate skills to bring up those kids successfully. Children of lucky families are followed and inspired to fulfill themselves, all the others end up waisting in the streets and there’s nobody around to tell them how to enjoy themselves and make the best of their childhood, the end result is angry teenagers, and if a 17 year old throws me a brick I think twice before challenge him, you need the police there.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:35 am
The GOVERNMENT? needs to do something? How about these people that cant afford to have kids quit having them? How about parents take some time to teach their kids right from wrong? Oh, they cannot be bothered with that and anyway, how were they to know that kids were going to need their attention when they were all hooched up and knocking out kids one after the other.
Mulitculturalism rocks, doesnt it?
June 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
I’m sorry but to blame multiculturalism is to really miss the point by a very wide measure.
How many black and asian people were there in London in Dickens’ times?
In Hogarth’s Gin Lane (1751) the drunken mother neglecting her child is white and English.
It’s the same problem that was never solved.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
multiculturalism has a lot to answer for and is to blame for a variety of problems we face today, however i’m with max that it’s not the main villain in the piece in terms of young kids killing young kids (and related activities)
June 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I’d go as far as to say that paradoxically this is one of the few areas were a process of cultural assimilation of immigrant into the indigenous English society has actually happened.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Ditto both of you the problems affect all of us regardless. There was yet another serious incident which i may write up later.
Im sooo fed up with it all.
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Ross, this exchange shows what I see as the problem with yours and the IWCA position on multiculturalism. You might be putting forward a sophisticated non-racist critique of multi-culturalism (basically saying its makes no difference what colour or creed people are) but many people like Jon above just slag off multi-culturalism from a racist perspective - when someone in the context of a crime story throws in a statement like ‘mulitculturalism rocks’ it is code for blacks/race mixing are to blame for crime. Instead of calling out Jon for what he seems to be - a racist - you respond by saying ‘multiculturalism has a lot to answer for’ (albeit it disagreeing with Jon’s interpretation). I think that you really need to be explicit that your criticism of multiculturalism has nothing in common with the bollocks spouted by the Daily Mail and every bar room racist, otherwise you are on dangerous ground.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
are you not mixing up two things here though? you start off talking about what you see as a problem with the position on multiculturalism, however when then expanding on this you only mention things connected to what you see as problems in the actual articulation of that position rather than the position itself.
surely you can’t be pushing the argument (which i don’t think you are) that just because there happens to be racist critiques of multiculturalism (although most racists are actually in favour of multiculturalism) then any critique of multiculturalism should be avoided. this problem actually stems from the effects of multicultarlism in the first place where the liberal discourse seems to start off with the assumption that everyone is racist unless it’s explicitly and continously stated otherwise in relation to every type of discussion on multiculturalism, this ends up rendering impotent most discourse on the topic as the emphasis gets shifted into continually explaining (and justifying yourself to hand wringing liberals) why you are not racist rather on the more important topic as to what a complete and utter disaseter official multicultarism has been
as for calling out random loons on the internet for being racist i’m pretty ambivalent about that, i’d much rather focus on trying to undermine the position of organised intelligent organisations who push an implicit and undercover agenda off the back of a supposed concern over issues that people really do care about, a decent and open critique of multicultarism is one way of doing that (especially given the BNP’s explicit support of multicultarism) and to be honest if a few liberal handwringers get their sentimentalities ruffled in that process due to the unrepentant nature of the critque then so be it, i’m sure they’ll soon resurface elsewhere when they’ve found someone/something else to be offended about on some imgainary person’s behalf
as for the success or otherwise of the IWCA’s position on multicultarism itself, i’d say it’s been pretty much vindicated by history now - this critque has been pushed for near on two decades now and through most of that time, the stock response to it has been to label it racist, however the last few years has seen a shift in mainstream thinking on this to effectively agree with the stance that the iwca has consistently taken over the last couple of decades - we’ve got previous champions of multiculturalism like trevor phillips now agreeing it’s been a disaster, and a lot of the liberal discourse is slowly but steadily coming round to this view as well, and also the cack handed response of the BBC to the failures of multicultarism also shows a realisation of it’s failings (although even then it’s response to it has been through the distorted prism of multicultarism)
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I don’t think that every critique of multiculturalism is racist, nor that every single criticism of multicultualism needs to prefaced with an explicit statement of anti-racism. It all depends on balance and context. For instance if somebody came up to you in a pub, pointed at a black guy kissing a white girl, and said ‘multiculturalism stinks’, you would be colluding with racism if you replied ‘yes I agree multiculturalism has a lot to answer for’ rather than decking him.
Equally I would be suspicious of people who only criticise multiculturalism and never racism. Racism isn’t a spectre invented by multiculturalist bureaucrats, its been around a whole lot longer. In fact I would see some forms of state multiculturalism as an attempt to manage and divide the movements and struggles against racism in the 70s and 80s.
Anyway this has got nothing to do with the crime debate, even if dubious people will always link the two. Real question is what can we do about violence in our communities. I think strong communities where people look out for each other is part of it, but not sure its enough to deal with the heavy end violence. If you’ve been involved with radical politics you tend to have had negative experience of police, so it can be a bit of a shock when many working class people’s main criticism of the police is that they’re never around when you need them. But even if you view the police as a decidely mixed blessing, who else have people got to fall back on - is there an alternative?
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
strong communities is definately the way, just one example of this happening (and the typical response communities can be met with when they try and achieve it) is documented here
http://www.redaction.org/bulletins/community.html#75_1
also the iwca in oxford have organised several successful pickets of known local drug dealers to drive them out and also similar things to confront the problems arising from groups of anti-social teenagers, the relationship with police is one which is probably quite different to your standard trot/leftist line, but the key thing there, as with any public institution, is a strive to make them as accountable as possible to the wider community, it’s not a blanket refusal to deal with them, but one which is done with the community as an equal in that relationship and not as subordinate to cack handed attempts of the police to solve problems in areas that they have no appreciation off, which most often results in creating more problems
http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/blackbirdleys/clssaprt.htm
July 18th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I think most of young people , they watch to much American movies.
British society are very racist .
September 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Something needs to be done about Milford Towers. We can’t go on living in fear. Please show your support by joining the facebook group ‘Demolish Milford Towers’.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Facebook group - Demolish Milford Towers
November 16th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I enjoyed living in Catford from 1988 to 1999, after second child realised we had to get out (very good move).
If everybody on this site was being honest instead of trying to be diversified up to the hilt they would admit the obvious,Catford has been flooded with non Catford people that have their own way of living and respect nothing,including life.
My advice ? get out if you can, God (yes God) help you if you cant.
May 19th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I lived in Milford Towers before, for 1 year. It was a nightmare for me. I couldn’t sleep at night because I always scared.