Gang kill innocent teenager and one of their own in attack with zombie knives
A gAng armed with zombie knives killed an innocent boy who was mistaken for a rival gangster and also left one of their own friends for dead after he was accidentally stabbed in the incident.
Charlie Bartolo, 16, was targeted at random by a group of teenage knife thugs who were driving around on a ‘ride out’ looking for a victim in an area where a rival gang operated.
The schoolboy was riding a dirt bike when he was rammed by the gang who jumped out and stabbed him in the head in Abbey Wood, south-east London.
One of the attackers was mistakenly stabbed in the shoulder by a friend in the frenzy.
Following the attack, which lasted less than a minute, wounded Kearne Solanke, 16, managed to stumble back to the gang’s car. But they dumped the vehicle less than a mile away, leaving him to bleed to death in the road. Last week the four killers were convicted of double murder at Inner London Crown Court after a jury found them guilty of killing their friend by mistake during the attack on the first victim.
Alagie Jobe and Hussain Bah, both 19, and two other teenagers, aged 17 and 16, who cannot be named due to their age, now face life sentences.
The killers had selected their first victim just because he happened to be in a postcode which they considered ‘enemy territory’. They were members of Thamesmead’s T-Block gang who were involved in a postcode feud with rivals from Abbey Wood.
But Mr Bartolo was not in any gang and police believe he was targeted simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time on november 26, 2022. He was taken to hospital but could not be saved.
Minutes later, the emergency services received a 999 call from Kearne Solanke’s 17- year- old associate who said he had been stabbed: ‘We didn’t see anything we just saw him on the side of the road… I think it’s a stab wound.’ Solanke died at the scene.
The gang were later seen on CCTV at a youth club celebrating the murder, making stabbing and slashing motions.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, KC, said there was a ‘depressingly petty reason for these killings – they arose from a sort of postcode rivalry.’
The killers are due to be sentenced later this month.