Agony of teen’s mum as murder toll rises to 62
THE mother of a teenage boy shot dead in broad daylight called on children to ‘stop killing each other’ yesterday.
Aspiring architect Rhyhiem Barton, 17, was playing football with friends when he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on a London street at 6pm on Saturday.
Witnesses said several shots were fired, including one that narrowly missed a woman and went through a window.
Rhyhiem’s mother Pretana Morgan arrived minutes later as paramedics tried to save him. He was pronounced dead on the street in Southwark just before 7pm.
Miss Morgan, 37, believes her son was killed by a gang called Zone 2 from Peckham, south London. She sent Rhyhiem to her native Jamaica last June for eight months to protect him after he survived a stabbing a month earlier.
‘I want these children to stop this,’ she said yesterday. ‘Enough parents are in this predicament and lose their child. All of the children out there, for my son’s sake, should get out of this foolishness. You better
wake up. You only have one life – you better make use of it. It’s been going on for three years now around here. We’ve got these Peckham boys … they’re always coming here and attacking our children.’
Miss Morgan, who has a six-year-old daughter and is separated from Rhyhiem’s father, was in a park near her Southwark home when a friend told her there had been a shooting nearby. When she arrived, she recognised her son’s hairstyle.
She said he had ‘so much potential’ and was a mentor with young children, adding: ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son … he was just trying to focus and trying to be an architect – he was not a bad child.’
Lacey Main, his godmother, blamed gangs from elsewhere in London. She said: ‘If you go on social media you will see them boasting … This is known to the police.’
Scotland Yard said no arrests had been made. Rhyhiem was the 62nd victim to be killed in the capital this year.