Dealers’ battle for share of post-lockdown drug market fuels rise in gangland crime
GANG wars are on the rise as drug dealers fight to increase their share of a market severely reduced by lockdown, a police commissioner has warned.
David Jamieson, police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, said there had been a “rapid escalation” in gang activity in the last three weeks.
The number of firearms discharged doubled from a low in mid-april, and violent crime has increased by 32.4 per cent from just 438 incidents in the last week of March to 580 in the first week of June.
“We felt the gangs had locked down to some extent,” said Mr Jamieson.
“As they moved around the streets in their cars, they were obvious. The police have been able to raid a lot of them and we have seized truly phenomenal amounts of cash. But I sense it is coming back in a big way because the drugs are less available and the gangs are therefore squabbling for markets.
“They have had difficulty transporting drugs into and around the country. There are fewer drugs available and they are now trying to increase their market base. They can only do that by fighting over territory.”
West Midlands Police released dramatic footage of one shooting in which a car was rammed off the road and hit a lamppost before a hooded gunman opened fire on the fleeing occupants in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham.
Another man with a machete then joined the chase, which happened in daylight in a residential area.
“They are getting really quite bold,” said Mr Jamieson. “We have shut down 70 county lines in the West Midlands during lockdown but as soon as one closes, another one opens up and tries to find new territory.”
Figures from the Metropolitan Police show a similar trend, with violent offences rising by more than 2,000 to 17,776 in May and drug offences nearly doubling to 6,444.
The increase in crime is expected to be confirmed by nationwide data to be published this week by the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
Mr Jamieson said the easing of lockdown had led to more youths on the street. “Some are goading the police, trying to provoke them into something, which is a new thing,” he said. “There are a lot of youngsters whose whole social life has been locked down. That’s a recipe for an explosion of energy.”
With schools unlikely to fully reopen until September, Mr Jamieson said he was concerned more children could be recruited by gangs, who increasingly are targeting girls because “they attract less attention” from the police.
He also warned of problems from the expected loss of one in five jobs in the Midlands following lockdown.
“I have a real concern that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb of young people who don’t have a job, don’t have money. Some may drift into anti-social behaviour or into other types of crime and drugs,” he said.