Boy of 14 is shot in the head in playground revenge attack

A BOY of 14 has been shot in the head outside a children’s playground in a tit-for-tat revenge attack by a rival gang.

Corey Junior Davis was blasted from behind with a shotgun in one of the most brazen gang shootings in recent years.

The schoolboy was shot at close range by a masked gunman just yards from a children’s playground on an estate in Forest Gate, east London, on Monday afternoon.

He is understood to have been part of a group targeted by a rival gang in retaliation for the stabbing of an 18-year- old during a mass brawl at the nearby Westfield Shopping Centre, in Stratford on Friday.

Corey was in a critical condition last night. Another teenager, who has been named locally as 17-year-old Jamal Reid, suffered ‘life-changing’ injuries after being shot in the leg by the gunman who is believed to have escaped in a getaway car.

A local shop worker said his friend had been sitting with Corey when the gunman opened fire.

The man, who did not want to be named, told the London Evening Standard: ‘They were just sitting there talking, and then this guy just came from behind and shot him.

‘Fourteen years old, what can you do to get shot in the head with a shotgun?’ A nearby resident said: ‘The shooting was outside the playground. I heard the noise from my house – pow, pow, it was twice.

‘The boy couldn’t talk, he was just laying down breathing hard. I didn’ t want to look at him because I saw too much blood.’

Locals last night claimed the shooting was the result of tit-for-tat dispute between the ‘E6’ and ‘Woodgrange’ gangs based in east London.

It is claimed the E6 gang, from Beckton, arranged the hit on the Woodgrange crew, who operate around Woodgrange Road in Forest Gate, following the brawl at the Westfield Shopping Centre last week. On Monday, a 17-year-old boy was charged with grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon in relation to the incident, in which an 18-year-old man was left with a stab wound in the abdomen.

Chief Superintendent Ade Adelekan, head of policing in the London Borough of Newham, said: ‘Sadly two young men have been shot on our streets.’

He added that there would be extra officers on duty overnight due to fears there could be a another revenge attack.

No arrests had been made last night.