Top cop in plea for witnesses to ‘do right thing’ and help catch killer
A POLICE chief has issued an urgent appeal for anyone who attended the lockdown party to come forward.
Greater Manchester Police are urging witnesses to ‘search their conscience’ and ‘do the right thing’ and report any information to them.
Formal identification of the two victims is yet to take place.
Officers said their priority now is to ‘find the gunman responsible’ and support the families who have been left ‘traumatised’ by the incident.
No arrests have been made yet and police are urgently trying to hunt down the person responsible, as well as ‘anybody who may have aided or abetted him’.
Chris Sykes, assistant chief constable at GMP, said it is ‘vitally important’ that any witnesses come forward.
He said: “Two men have been killed in the most brutal and horrifying way.
“This is our absolute top priority and our focus will remain on the investigation and finding those responsible for this barbaric act.
“We will continue to support the men’s loved ones and we have family liaison officers supporting them at what is an unimaginably difficult time.
“We will offer them as much help as we possibly can and continue to focus our efforts in seeking justice for them.
“We’ve also been working closely with the community who are quite understandably shocked and saddened by this news and know that this horror is not a reflection of the community and its values.”
Mr Sykes said police know there were ‘a lot of people in and around the area’ at the time of the shooting. He has issued a direct appeal for these witnesses to get in touch.
“We understand that people may have reservations about coming forward due to the current coronavirus circumstances, but we would implore you to search your conscience and do the right thing,” he added. “Two men have lost their lives and we must do everything that we can to get justice.”
Mr Sykes said police had an ‘enormous’ amount of resource in place over the weekend and prevented several illegal gatherings from taking place.
“The events in Moss Side were a tragic example of what started as a small, peaceful community event, which was monitored by police and community partners, resulting in a separate, unplanned gathering later in the evening which police were not made aware of,” he added.
“This ended in the horrific events where two men were murdered.
“Right now our focus now is on supporting the families of those who sadly lost their lives at the event in Moss Side, and appealing to the community to come forward with further information which will help us to track down the perpetrator and get justice for the victims. Our priority is making arrests and bringing those responsible into custody.
“We will continue around the clock to trace those responsible and we are following a number of covert lines of enquiry. We hope the community support us in this and report anything information.”
Coun Nigel Murphy, deputy leader at Manchester council, said: “This is tragic beyond belief and as a council we offer our support, thoughts and prayers to the families and communities facing such loss. We will look at how we help young people in particular who will have been traumatised by the incident - and this will include making mental health support available.”
Anyone with information can call police on 0161 856 9908, quoting incident number 221 of 21/06/2020.
Reports can also be made anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.