One dead, 9 stabbed as ‘gang war’ erupts in London suburb
BLOODSHED continued across a South London suburb yesterday after five knife attacks within around two hours on Friday left a young man dead and nine others with stab wounds.
Two more men were stabbed in Croydon yesterday, both in broad daylight. Scotland Yard last night announced additional officers have been deployed in the area.
The Met are investigating suspected gang links to the murder of a 22-year-old man attacked by a group of men by a block of flats near Crystal Palace Football Club’s Selhurst Park stadium on Friday.
The victim, known locally as ‘Lavz’, bled to death from knife wounds as neighbours and paramedics worked frantically to save him. Another man at the scene suffered a stab wound in what police described as an ‘altercation’ with a group of males. His condition was not thought to be life-threatening.
A resident of more than 20 years who declined to give her name, said: ‘I heard someone shouting, but I thought it was normal, just people drinking outside. I came down and saw two police and two ambulance guys on the ground. There was blood everywhere. It looked like he was cut in the leg, they tried to stop the bleeding. His mum was here crying. She was in pieces.’ A woman, understood to be the victim’s mother, was heard saying: ‘I can’t believe I lost him.’
The dead man’s family and friends yesterday left flowers at the scene but were too upset to speak. Locals claimed the victim was affiliated to the Young Peckham Boys gang.
This attack was one of four separate stabbing incidents in just over a square mile on Friday. Police were called to the first at 6.56pm on Chapman Road, Croydon which had left one man injured. Twenty minutes later, four men in their 20s arrived at a local hospital with stab wounds following a fight in Penwortham Road, Streatham. At 8.10pm, officers were called to the fatal stabbing on Wisbeach Road. The fourth attack within the square mile occurred at 9.12pm. It left one man in his 40s injured on Dingwall Road, Croydon. He was taken to hospital and arrested on suspicion of affray while a 38-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm. Police also received a report at 8.51pm that two more men went to a South London hospital with stab wounds after an attack in nearby Chislehurst.
Yesterday officers were called at 3pm to an attack on London Road, Croydon in which a 24-year-old man was stabbed. This followed a stabbing at 11.20am yesterday in Hadleigh Grove, south of Croydon. A man in his 20s was taken to hospital for non-life threatening injuries and two men were arrested.
Last night officers launched a second murder investigation after a man in his 20s was stabbed to death in Kilburn, North London.
Officers were called at 5.40pm yesterday and found two males suffering injuries. One was pronounced dead at the scene and a second male in his teens was taken to hospital in a critical condition.