The Peckham Boys are a gang based in Peckham, South London. The gang was formed in the North Peckham Estate and its members are primarily Black British.
The gang composed of several affiliated sets, according to age group. The sets, more commonly known by their acronyms, are SN1 (Spare No1, a corruption of the word no-one), PYG (Pecknarm Young Gunnerz) and SI (Shoot Instant). Formerly, the sets of the gang were known simply as the 'Peckham Boys', the 'Younger Peckham Boys' and the 'Peckham Kidz'. The gang is also known as 'Black Gang', due to its association with the colour black.
The teenagers convicted of the high-profile murder of Damilola Taylor in 2000 were reported members of the Younger Peckham Boys. (although unbeknown to the media were actually members of a lesser local gang the Untouchables). The killers Ricky and Danny Preddie were only 13 and 14 at the time of the murder. Another boy of Nigerian origin was stabbed to death on the north Peckham estate nine days before Damilola was murdered, police have said. Shola Agora, 17, was found in the back of a car after being attacked just a few hundred yards from the stairwell where Damilola was found.
In 2006, the Peckham Boys were involved in a widely reported gang-war against the Ghetto Boys street gang based at the Pepys Estate and Woodpecker Estate in Deptford and New Cross respectively, South London. In the conflict, one innocent man was shot dead in New Cross, mistaken as a Ghetto Boys member by the Peckham Boys. He was shot at by a group of approximately 50 youths on mountain bikes, who cycled from Peckham to Deptford. His younger brother however was a Ghetto Boy (Alexander a.k.a Kraver) had died in a car crash in Sydenham in 2006.
Shortly after the murder, another man was shot and stabbed in Deptford by the same group, but survived. Several members of the Ghetto Boys shot at youths in Peckham several days earlier. During the conflict, police seized handguns and sub-machine guns.
On the 24 September 2008, police conducted dawn raids on suspected members of the Peckham Boys gang. It is believed that the group conducted 120 robberies in what police have called a "prolific" criminal enterprise. The gang are believed to have used knives, machetes, crowbars and screwdrivers, sometimes up to 18 inches in length, to ensure they got away with the money.
Historically, the Peckham Boys have had a fierce rivalry with gangs from Brixton and New Cross. The dispute between the Peckham Boys and the Ghetto Boys of New Cross had been ongoing for over 20 years, although it is now over.
In recent times, the main rival to the gangs in Peckham are OC (Organised Crime), based in the Myatts Field North Estate, Brixton. The Peckham factions are also engaged in turf-war with groups from the Old Kent Road area and 031, a Stockwell-based Blood gang.
The Peckham Boys are known to identify with the colour black. The gang is identifiable by black bandannas, which are either worn around the lower face, neck or wrist. The brooklyn boys are known to identify with the colour dark grey.The gang is identifiable by darkgrey bandannas,which is either worn on the faces or wrist.theyare known for killing and being in involved with drugs conflict.
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Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:05 am
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Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:17 am
Life and death in the Peckham ghetto
By Sandra Leville
Last Updated: 2:12PM BST 19 Jun 2001
WITH pit bull terriers straining at the leash, two young boys stroll through the Peckham Pulse, a new recreation area outside the recently opened library.
Both are under 16, neither is at school. On a nearby street corner stands Dwain Brown, accompanied by his mother. The 13-year-old has not been to school since May, when he was expelled from Warwick Park, the neighbourhood comprehensive which becomes the daytime home of many of the smartly-uniformed 11-year-olds when they leave Oliver Goldsmith primary 200 yards away.
Dwain was expelled for getting mixed up with the local gangs, which his mother says dominate both the school playground and the North Peckham estate where her family lives.
The Peckham Boys, the Deptford Ghetto Boys and the Brockley Crews, their names are already daubed in graffiti on the walls of the new library. They gather outside after dark while staff inside continue valiantly to promote football and computer clubs as distractions for teenagers being enticed into low-grade gang warfare.
Local beat officers know the gangs of boys well. One constable said: "They are mostly involved in anti-social behaviour, hanging around after dark and making a nuisance of themselves but there are a couple of gangs who are responsible for a lot of trouble. We know who they are, we arrest them, we charge them, they go to court and get a slapped wrist and then they are back here again. They think we are powerless and quite frankly they are right."
At night in the dark alleys of the estate mothers and young children dare not venture out. Ryan Lee, a builder who has been demolishing blocks of the 1960s flats, also makes sure he is not in the area at night. He said: "It is quite terrifying round here. I came back after 6pm to pick something up one night. Never again. There are kids hanging around and you can see these cars drawn up, Mercedes and BMWs and kids run up to them to buy heroin. It is like bees round honey. When we demolished this block we found around 20,000 hypodermic needles."
Dwain's mother has another child, aged 10. Her friends, Sharon Ebanks, 36, and Karen Davis, 32, also have young children of primary school age, some of whom attend Oliver Goldsmith Primary, where Damilola Taylor was a pupil.
What they fear most is the move from the relative security and control of the primary environment to the likes of Warwick Park, a 915-pupil school with a reputation for bullying, violence and disruptive behaviour and an exclusion rate 10 times the national average.
Mrs Brown said: "You can see it start when the little ones get a bit older at their primary schools. I've just come back from a meeting with the head teacher of my son's primary because he was being bullied badly. That's when it tends to start. If the children are different, if they are bright or if they want to work they get targeted."
With a high proportion of children with behavioural problems and many who do not have English as a first language, Oliver Goldsmith has had a turbulent past, but much has been done to stamp out disruptive behaviour. However, once these same 11-year-olds graduate to secondary school, many parents fear that they do not stand a chance. Pushing her five-month-old daughter in a pram, Mrs Davis was on her way to collect both her 11- and 14-year-old children from school yesterday.
She has first-hand knowledge of the problems they could encounter if she were not there to walk them home. She said: "Just a few months ago, around 3.25pm, I was in my flat when I heard the most terrible racket outside. I looked out to see what on earth was going on and saw a gang of teenage girls from Warwick Park and Waverley School outside on the green. It started as a fight between two girls. By the end there were 40 or 50 of them there and I have never seen weapons like the ones they had in my life. They had baseball bats, knives and clubs, and these were girls."
These teenagers and others like them are regularly targeted by special programmes in secondary schools in which police, the council and teachers work together to tackle anti-social behaviour. Marilyn Bailey, a musician, has spent time working in schools on anti-bullying policies. But, having seen inside many of the borough's secondary schools, Mrs Bailey, an American who was born in a Miami ghetto, refuses to let her 12-year-old son through their doors.
"He went to a secondary school for a short time. But he was bright, he was different and he had a terrible time. The whole culture is bad. If you want to work you are targeted." Mrs Bailey now teaches Jonathan herself at home, such is her lack of faith in the education system.
She said: "I moved to Britain 10 years ago. I was born and lived in the ghetto in Miami. I got sick of the violence there. What I found constantly amazing is the way these gangs of teenagers here have adopted the attitude, music and language of the American ghetto. Thank God they don't have guns yet like they do in the States, that's all I can say."
Mrs Bailey lives in a modern semi-detached house on the outskirts of North Peckham estate. It, and other rows of houses like it, are the product of five years of regeneration which has done much to rid the area of the sordid blocks of 1960s flats.
Within a year it is hoped that the damp block with boarded-up windows and burned-out flats where Damilola lived for four months will also be demolished and replaced with the new North Peckham estate - rows of two-storey, modern houses, complete with drives and car ports, all designed by people living on the estate.
The Right Rev Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark, said yesterday: "There is a lot of effort going into that estate. We are talking about probably one of the toughest estates in Europe and the Government has been spending £240 million knocking it down and rebuilding it with more human buildings, and it is showing."
But Mrs Bailey and others like her do not feel it is showing quickly enough. She said: "You can't just move people into nice new houses and expect them to change. It doesn't work like that. You can take a person out of the ghetto but you won't take that attitude away from them. You have to get down to their level and work with them to try to change their attitude and you can't do that without giving them some hope of a future. The kids around here are angry and quite frankly they have every right to be angry."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... hetto.html
By Sandra Leville
Last Updated: 2:12PM BST 19 Jun 2001
WITH pit bull terriers straining at the leash, two young boys stroll through the Peckham Pulse, a new recreation area outside the recently opened library.
Both are under 16, neither is at school. On a nearby street corner stands Dwain Brown, accompanied by his mother. The 13-year-old has not been to school since May, when he was expelled from Warwick Park, the neighbourhood comprehensive which becomes the daytime home of many of the smartly-uniformed 11-year-olds when they leave Oliver Goldsmith primary 200 yards away.
Dwain was expelled for getting mixed up with the local gangs, which his mother says dominate both the school playground and the North Peckham estate where her family lives.
The Peckham Boys, the Deptford Ghetto Boys and the Brockley Crews, their names are already daubed in graffiti on the walls of the new library. They gather outside after dark while staff inside continue valiantly to promote football and computer clubs as distractions for teenagers being enticed into low-grade gang warfare.
Local beat officers know the gangs of boys well. One constable said: "They are mostly involved in anti-social behaviour, hanging around after dark and making a nuisance of themselves but there are a couple of gangs who are responsible for a lot of trouble. We know who they are, we arrest them, we charge them, they go to court and get a slapped wrist and then they are back here again. They think we are powerless and quite frankly they are right."
At night in the dark alleys of the estate mothers and young children dare not venture out. Ryan Lee, a builder who has been demolishing blocks of the 1960s flats, also makes sure he is not in the area at night. He said: "It is quite terrifying round here. I came back after 6pm to pick something up one night. Never again. There are kids hanging around and you can see these cars drawn up, Mercedes and BMWs and kids run up to them to buy heroin. It is like bees round honey. When we demolished this block we found around 20,000 hypodermic needles."
Dwain's mother has another child, aged 10. Her friends, Sharon Ebanks, 36, and Karen Davis, 32, also have young children of primary school age, some of whom attend Oliver Goldsmith Primary, where Damilola Taylor was a pupil.
What they fear most is the move from the relative security and control of the primary environment to the likes of Warwick Park, a 915-pupil school with a reputation for bullying, violence and disruptive behaviour and an exclusion rate 10 times the national average.
Mrs Brown said: "You can see it start when the little ones get a bit older at their primary schools. I've just come back from a meeting with the head teacher of my son's primary because he was being bullied badly. That's when it tends to start. If the children are different, if they are bright or if they want to work they get targeted."
With a high proportion of children with behavioural problems and many who do not have English as a first language, Oliver Goldsmith has had a turbulent past, but much has been done to stamp out disruptive behaviour. However, once these same 11-year-olds graduate to secondary school, many parents fear that they do not stand a chance. Pushing her five-month-old daughter in a pram, Mrs Davis was on her way to collect both her 11- and 14-year-old children from school yesterday.
She has first-hand knowledge of the problems they could encounter if she were not there to walk them home. She said: "Just a few months ago, around 3.25pm, I was in my flat when I heard the most terrible racket outside. I looked out to see what on earth was going on and saw a gang of teenage girls from Warwick Park and Waverley School outside on the green. It started as a fight between two girls. By the end there were 40 or 50 of them there and I have never seen weapons like the ones they had in my life. They had baseball bats, knives and clubs, and these were girls."
These teenagers and others like them are regularly targeted by special programmes in secondary schools in which police, the council and teachers work together to tackle anti-social behaviour. Marilyn Bailey, a musician, has spent time working in schools on anti-bullying policies. But, having seen inside many of the borough's secondary schools, Mrs Bailey, an American who was born in a Miami ghetto, refuses to let her 12-year-old son through their doors.
"He went to a secondary school for a short time. But he was bright, he was different and he had a terrible time. The whole culture is bad. If you want to work you are targeted." Mrs Bailey now teaches Jonathan herself at home, such is her lack of faith in the education system.
She said: "I moved to Britain 10 years ago. I was born and lived in the ghetto in Miami. I got sick of the violence there. What I found constantly amazing is the way these gangs of teenagers here have adopted the attitude, music and language of the American ghetto. Thank God they don't have guns yet like they do in the States, that's all I can say."
Mrs Bailey lives in a modern semi-detached house on the outskirts of North Peckham estate. It, and other rows of houses like it, are the product of five years of regeneration which has done much to rid the area of the sordid blocks of 1960s flats.
Within a year it is hoped that the damp block with boarded-up windows and burned-out flats where Damilola lived for four months will also be demolished and replaced with the new North Peckham estate - rows of two-storey, modern houses, complete with drives and car ports, all designed by people living on the estate.
The Right Rev Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark, said yesterday: "There is a lot of effort going into that estate. We are talking about probably one of the toughest estates in Europe and the Government has been spending £240 million knocking it down and rebuilding it with more human buildings, and it is showing."
But Mrs Bailey and others like her do not feel it is showing quickly enough. She said: "You can't just move people into nice new houses and expect them to change. It doesn't work like that. You can take a person out of the ghetto but you won't take that attitude away from them. You have to get down to their level and work with them to try to change their attitude and you can't do that without giving them some hope of a future. The kids around here are angry and quite frankly they have every right to be angry."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... hetto.html
- Greaze
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Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:21 am
Gang war returns to streets where Damilola died
Ten years ago Jason Gale-Bent had a life-altering experience - he was stabbed and had to be airlifted to hospital for emergency treatment.
According to his family, this brush with death made him turn his back on the culture of gang violence that many of his young south London neighbours had been sucked into. But last Sunday his past appeared to catch up with him. At about 9pm the 29-year-old was sitting with his brother and another friend on a wall in the New Cross area.
A gang of about 30 young men on mountain bikes appeared, one of whom pulled out a gun and started firing. A fight followed in which Mr Gale-Bent was stabbed in the heart. He managed to stagger about 30 metres to his home where he collapsed and died.
Detectives investigating the murder believe he was probably mistaken for a member of one of the local gangs - the Ghetto Boys - by a rival outfit, the Peckham Boys. The killing is seen by many as the latest incident in an outbreak of gang warfare, in an area made notorious by the fatal stabbing of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor on a Peckham estate in 2000. Police stressed there was no evidence to suggest Mr Gale-Bent was an active member of any gang. At the time of his death he was working as a labourer and looking for a flat with his girlfriend.
Eileen Gate, the mother of the dead man, issued a statement for the family, saying: "Jason was a friendly person who did not associate himself with any particular group and was not a member of any gang. There is nothing that can be done to bring him back to me. I abhor violence and ask that as a community we work towards bringing Jason's killers to justice. No other mother should have to suffer like I am."
Officers from the Operation Trident team, which investigates "black-on-black" violence, are examing a series of recent attacks to establish whether the stabbing is linked to a wider gang problem. Shortly after Mr Gale-Bent's murder a large group of youths on bicycles gathered outside the Community Action Centre in Deptford. A gun was fired and a man on a moped was chased by the youths, before crashing and trying to make off on foot. He was caught and stabbed in a doorway.
The following day, on Monday evening, a 16-year-old youth and two men, aged 21 and 28, were playing football on a basketball court in Peckham when a car pulled up. Three men in hooded tops got out and are reported to have shouted "Peckham Boys are Pussies" before pointing a gun through the railings and firing three shots. No one was injured. Hours later police raided a property in Peckham and arrested a man and a 17-year-old girl, and seized a handgun, a Mac 10 submachine gun, and drugs.
Last month, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed opposite a bookmakers in New Cross. Another 16-year-old has been charged with attempted murder.
Detective Chief Inspector Peter Valentine, who is investigating the murder of Mr Gale-Bent, said: "I think this was an unprovoked attack in which Jason was targeted because there was an assumption that he was a member of the Ghetto Boys - I believe this is wrong and that he was not an active gang member."
The police say much of the rivalry centres on drugs, money, territory, or seemingly minor slights. Many of the gangs have fluid membership and some are created as breakaway groups. The Young Peckham Boys, whose members included the Preddie brothers, Danny and Ricky, who were convicted in August of killing Damilola Taylor, were thought to be an offshoot of the Peckham Boys. Other south London gangs include the Peel Dem Crew (Brixton), the South Man Syndicate (Tooting, Streatham and Thornton Heath) and the Muslim Boys (Brixton).
Michelle Forbes, vice-chairwoman of the Mothers Against Guns pressure group, said: "The current situation has got out of control. It seems to be going through a period at the moment where it is important for certain youths to be part of a gang ... The gangs have certain initiations to become gang members - these can include shooting stabbing, or kidnapping someone."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 17149.html
Ten years ago Jason Gale-Bent had a life-altering experience - he was stabbed and had to be airlifted to hospital for emergency treatment.
According to his family, this brush with death made him turn his back on the culture of gang violence that many of his young south London neighbours had been sucked into. But last Sunday his past appeared to catch up with him. At about 9pm the 29-year-old was sitting with his brother and another friend on a wall in the New Cross area.
A gang of about 30 young men on mountain bikes appeared, one of whom pulled out a gun and started firing. A fight followed in which Mr Gale-Bent was stabbed in the heart. He managed to stagger about 30 metres to his home where he collapsed and died.
Detectives investigating the murder believe he was probably mistaken for a member of one of the local gangs - the Ghetto Boys - by a rival outfit, the Peckham Boys. The killing is seen by many as the latest incident in an outbreak of gang warfare, in an area made notorious by the fatal stabbing of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor on a Peckham estate in 2000. Police stressed there was no evidence to suggest Mr Gale-Bent was an active member of any gang. At the time of his death he was working as a labourer and looking for a flat with his girlfriend.
Eileen Gate, the mother of the dead man, issued a statement for the family, saying: "Jason was a friendly person who did not associate himself with any particular group and was not a member of any gang. There is nothing that can be done to bring him back to me. I abhor violence and ask that as a community we work towards bringing Jason's killers to justice. No other mother should have to suffer like I am."
Officers from the Operation Trident team, which investigates "black-on-black" violence, are examing a series of recent attacks to establish whether the stabbing is linked to a wider gang problem. Shortly after Mr Gale-Bent's murder a large group of youths on bicycles gathered outside the Community Action Centre in Deptford. A gun was fired and a man on a moped was chased by the youths, before crashing and trying to make off on foot. He was caught and stabbed in a doorway.
The following day, on Monday evening, a 16-year-old youth and two men, aged 21 and 28, were playing football on a basketball court in Peckham when a car pulled up. Three men in hooded tops got out and are reported to have shouted "Peckham Boys are Pussies" before pointing a gun through the railings and firing three shots. No one was injured. Hours later police raided a property in Peckham and arrested a man and a 17-year-old girl, and seized a handgun, a Mac 10 submachine gun, and drugs.
Last month, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed opposite a bookmakers in New Cross. Another 16-year-old has been charged with attempted murder.
Detective Chief Inspector Peter Valentine, who is investigating the murder of Mr Gale-Bent, said: "I think this was an unprovoked attack in which Jason was targeted because there was an assumption that he was a member of the Ghetto Boys - I believe this is wrong and that he was not an active gang member."
The police say much of the rivalry centres on drugs, money, territory, or seemingly minor slights. Many of the gangs have fluid membership and some are created as breakaway groups. The Young Peckham Boys, whose members included the Preddie brothers, Danny and Ricky, who were convicted in August of killing Damilola Taylor, were thought to be an offshoot of the Peckham Boys. Other south London gangs include the Peel Dem Crew (Brixton), the South Man Syndicate (Tooting, Streatham and Thornton Heath) and the Muslim Boys (Brixton).
Michelle Forbes, vice-chairwoman of the Mothers Against Guns pressure group, said: "The current situation has got out of control. It seems to be going through a period at the moment where it is important for certain youths to be part of a gang ... The gangs have certain initiations to become gang members - these can include shooting stabbing, or kidnapping someone."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 17149.html
- Greaze
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- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:23 am
The inside story of gang life in Peckham
After last week's killing, Lorraine King, a black mother and journalist for the New Nation newspaper, discovers the disturbing extent of gun culture
The streets are clean, there's no graffiti on the walls and the houses are well maintained. Walking down this London road I feel no fear; in fact a mother pushing her baby in a buggy has just given me a friendly smile - a rarity in this city.
But this isn't a tree-lined suburban street filled with desirable Victorian homes. This is Peckham and the streets where three people - including 15-year-old Michael Dosunmu - have been murdered in just five days.
The area has never been salubrious. For more than a generation it has been linked to drugs, gangs and violent murders. It came to the nation's attention in 2000, when 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was stabbed to death on a stairwell of a block of flats on the notorious North Peckham Estate.
Just over six years on and the crumbling Sixties housing blocks may have made way for low-level flats and homes through a £300m regeneration programme, but it appears that no amount of money can rid the area of crime.
As I walked around last week, I met a man who gave his name only as Mr X. He revealed a picture of young men boasting and showing off in an ever-spiralling game of 'I'm a bigger man than you are'. Much of it is centred on the drugs trade, offering the only employment in much of the area. In the end, guns settle disputes.
'In Peckham it's standard for someone going down the local shop to be carrying a strap [a gun],' he said. 'In the past five years guns have just been made more and more available; it's like going to order a takeaway now. It's ridiculous.'
According to local people, gang members in the area go under the name Peckham Boys. Their arch rivals, the Ghetto Boys, are from nearby New Cross. For more than 20 years the gangs have been warring with each other.
Mr X said: 'To be honest, the beef [argument] goes back so many years that people can't even remember what it was over. It just passes down from the older ones to the younger members of the gang. The Ghetto Boys are falling apart bit by bit. They've got no strength no more. Their top leaders are gone - half of them are on crack, the rest in jail or dead.'
The quick succession of last week's killings fuelled speculation that the murders were connected to the two gangs but detectives from Operation Trident, the Metropolitan Police's specialist team which investigates gun crime within the black community, have only managed to link two of the killings and have said that neither is gang-related.
This does not mean there is a ceasefire. According to Mr X the 'heat is still on' and anyone who goes to the clubs locally will notice the cold atmosphere. He said: 'You'll have a certain gang of youths on one side of the dance, another on another side and another in a next corner. Everyone's hostile, no one's dancing.
'It's all about whose got the best bottle of champagne, who's wearing the best trainers, who's pushing the biggest weights, who's got the biggest jewellery, who's driving the best car.'
According to Mr X, if you can scoop every title - best champagne, best gun, best trainers - you will deemed the 'winner' of your area, or 'ends' as it is more commonly known: 'Once you got your status, you're made in your "ends". You go put on certain cable channels and you hear it all in the music: "Rep [represent] your ends". They're glorifying it. Talking about drugs, guns, it's all gone mad.'
According to a former employee of one of these small-scale urban cable stations, the more explicit the lyrics, the more likely it would be aired. She said: 'If they aren't talking about popping your gun and repping your ends the station didn't want to know. I think it's disgusting and that's why I left.'
I thought it must be a south London trend, but after talking to my son and discovering that youths in north-west London's (aka North Wheezy) Stonebridge Estate have beef with those from Neasden, I was horrified to discover this is not just a London thing but nationwide. White and Asian boys are 'repping their ends too' - in fact, many gangs are mixed.
I asked Mr X and other people what could stop this. They all said more black officers need to be in Operation Trident. Until then, the youths will take no notice of what Trident's police say.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/feb/1 ... heobserver
After last week's killing, Lorraine King, a black mother and journalist for the New Nation newspaper, discovers the disturbing extent of gun culture
The streets are clean, there's no graffiti on the walls and the houses are well maintained. Walking down this London road I feel no fear; in fact a mother pushing her baby in a buggy has just given me a friendly smile - a rarity in this city.
But this isn't a tree-lined suburban street filled with desirable Victorian homes. This is Peckham and the streets where three people - including 15-year-old Michael Dosunmu - have been murdered in just five days.
The area has never been salubrious. For more than a generation it has been linked to drugs, gangs and violent murders. It came to the nation's attention in 2000, when 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was stabbed to death on a stairwell of a block of flats on the notorious North Peckham Estate.
Just over six years on and the crumbling Sixties housing blocks may have made way for low-level flats and homes through a £300m regeneration programme, but it appears that no amount of money can rid the area of crime.
As I walked around last week, I met a man who gave his name only as Mr X. He revealed a picture of young men boasting and showing off in an ever-spiralling game of 'I'm a bigger man than you are'. Much of it is centred on the drugs trade, offering the only employment in much of the area. In the end, guns settle disputes.
'In Peckham it's standard for someone going down the local shop to be carrying a strap [a gun],' he said. 'In the past five years guns have just been made more and more available; it's like going to order a takeaway now. It's ridiculous.'
According to local people, gang members in the area go under the name Peckham Boys. Their arch rivals, the Ghetto Boys, are from nearby New Cross. For more than 20 years the gangs have been warring with each other.
Mr X said: 'To be honest, the beef [argument] goes back so many years that people can't even remember what it was over. It just passes down from the older ones to the younger members of the gang. The Ghetto Boys are falling apart bit by bit. They've got no strength no more. Their top leaders are gone - half of them are on crack, the rest in jail or dead.'
The quick succession of last week's killings fuelled speculation that the murders were connected to the two gangs but detectives from Operation Trident, the Metropolitan Police's specialist team which investigates gun crime within the black community, have only managed to link two of the killings and have said that neither is gang-related.
This does not mean there is a ceasefire. According to Mr X the 'heat is still on' and anyone who goes to the clubs locally will notice the cold atmosphere. He said: 'You'll have a certain gang of youths on one side of the dance, another on another side and another in a next corner. Everyone's hostile, no one's dancing.
'It's all about whose got the best bottle of champagne, who's wearing the best trainers, who's pushing the biggest weights, who's got the biggest jewellery, who's driving the best car.'
According to Mr X, if you can scoop every title - best champagne, best gun, best trainers - you will deemed the 'winner' of your area, or 'ends' as it is more commonly known: 'Once you got your status, you're made in your "ends". You go put on certain cable channels and you hear it all in the music: "Rep [represent] your ends". They're glorifying it. Talking about drugs, guns, it's all gone mad.'
According to a former employee of one of these small-scale urban cable stations, the more explicit the lyrics, the more likely it would be aired. She said: 'If they aren't talking about popping your gun and repping your ends the station didn't want to know. I think it's disgusting and that's why I left.'
I thought it must be a south London trend, but after talking to my son and discovering that youths in north-west London's (aka North Wheezy) Stonebridge Estate have beef with those from Neasden, I was horrified to discover this is not just a London thing but nationwide. White and Asian boys are 'repping their ends too' - in fact, many gangs are mixed.
I asked Mr X and other people what could stop this. They all said more black officers need to be in Operation Trident. Until then, the youths will take no notice of what Trident's police say.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/feb/1 ... heobserver
- Greaze
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:26 am
Seven held in swoop on Peckham Boys gang
Rob Singh, Evening Standard
23.09.08
Police today arrested seven suspected members of a gang in connection with hundreds of robberies across London.
Dawn raids: a suspect is led away for questioning over robberies in 17 London boroughs
They targeted the notorious Peckham Boys in a series of dawn raids. Sources described the men being held as "significant members" and "major players".
Up to 150 officers were involved in the simultaneous swoops at 17 addresses in Peckham, Brockley and Kennington. They also raided properties in east London and Surrey and recovered two samurai swords.
The arrests were part of a clampdown on the Peckham Boys who have allegedly been targeting cash held in gaming machines at high street betting shops, arcades and pubs.
Detectives believe the gang is behind 120 robberies in 17 boroughs between March last year and last month and has stolen more than £150,000. It is thought the gang could be linked to as many as 280 robberies in the last three years. Their spree started with pubs and graduated to bookmakers.
Police believe the gang committed up to four offences a day using knives, machetes, crowbars and long screwdrivers to threaten staff.
During today's operation the Met's Flying Squad was joined by officers from Operation Blunt, which combats knife crime. They were backed by officers from the Territorial Support Group and dog handlers.
At one flat in Kennington specialist equipment was used to smash down a reinforced door and dog handlers had to restrain two pitbull-like dogs who attacked police.
The boroughs the robbers operated in were Lewisham, Wandsworth, Richmond, Hackney, Brent, Lambeth, Southwark-Haringey, Ealing, Newham and Westminster. Community liaison officers are talking to residents about the raids. Detective chief inspector Martin Huxley, of the Flying Squad at Barnes, said: "The gang was highly motivated and ruthless, often carrying out the brazen raids in daylight and putting staff and members of the public in fear of their lives. We hope today's arrests will bring reassurance to Londoners that these aggressive offences will not be tolerated."
Rob Singh, Evening Standard
23.09.08
Police today arrested seven suspected members of a gang in connection with hundreds of robberies across London.
Dawn raids: a suspect is led away for questioning over robberies in 17 London boroughs
They targeted the notorious Peckham Boys in a series of dawn raids. Sources described the men being held as "significant members" and "major players".
Up to 150 officers were involved in the simultaneous swoops at 17 addresses in Peckham, Brockley and Kennington. They also raided properties in east London and Surrey and recovered two samurai swords.
The arrests were part of a clampdown on the Peckham Boys who have allegedly been targeting cash held in gaming machines at high street betting shops, arcades and pubs.
Detectives believe the gang is behind 120 robberies in 17 boroughs between March last year and last month and has stolen more than £150,000. It is thought the gang could be linked to as many as 280 robberies in the last three years. Their spree started with pubs and graduated to bookmakers.
Police believe the gang committed up to four offences a day using knives, machetes, crowbars and long screwdrivers to threaten staff.
During today's operation the Met's Flying Squad was joined by officers from Operation Blunt, which combats knife crime. They were backed by officers from the Territorial Support Group and dog handlers.
At one flat in Kennington specialist equipment was used to smash down a reinforced door and dog handlers had to restrain two pitbull-like dogs who attacked police.
The boroughs the robbers operated in were Lewisham, Wandsworth, Richmond, Hackney, Brent, Lambeth, Southwark-Haringey, Ealing, Newham and Westminster. Community liaison officers are talking to residents about the raids. Detective chief inspector Martin Huxley, of the Flying Squad at Barnes, said: "The gang was highly motivated and ruthless, often carrying out the brazen raids in daylight and putting staff and members of the public in fear of their lives. We hope today's arrests will bring reassurance to Londoners that these aggressive offences will not be tolerated."
- Greaze
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:31 am
Ten years of Operation Trident
Phil Fisk
Posted: Tue Feb 19 2008
Ten years ago, the Met launched Operation Trident, an attempt to tackle black-on-black gun crime. Yet London firearms offences are still on the rise. Rebecca Taylor looks back on a hit-and-miss decade, Danielle Aumord talks to a gang member and Simone Baird speaks to others staring down the barrel on the capital‘s frontline
In March 1998, after a string of shootings in Lambeth and Brent, the Met Police launched its anti-gun crime unit, Operation Trident. A decade on, Trident has been used as a blueprint for tackling gun crime country-wide. Yet last year firearm offences in the capital rose by 4 per cent: there were 3,459 ‘gun-enabled’ crimes in 2007, including 30 gun murders; of those, nine victims were aged 18 or under. So is Trident really working?
‘Gun crime began to escalate following a series of south London gang executions in the late ’90s,’ says Tony Thompson, a former Time Out news editor who has written several books on gang culture. ‘Previous Met operations were seen as putting down the black community. Trident, from the start, was intelligence-led and had strong links with the black community.’
When I came to cover Thompson’s patch for TO in 2002, the Met was claiming success for containing gun crime in Brent, an area dubbed the ‘gun capital of the UK’ by the press. Officers from Harlesden told me that those involved in gun crime were from ‘a criminal minority’. But that wasn’t my experience visiting the area’s Stonebridge estate, where one young resident told me: ‘Seeing a shooting round here is like spotting a bus.’
Since then, a succession of other areas have worn the unwanted mantle of ‘gun capital’, most recently the Brixton/Clapham/Streatham area of south-west London thanks to the shootings of three boys in one week last February. But Trident has had significant successes, including the conviction in 2004 of Owen Clark, aka Father Fowl, a drugs kingpin whose detention is reckoned to have been a major factor in the decline in shootings in north-west London.
Trident now has around 300 officers. As well as conducting its own investigations, it helps local police investigate shootings and collate intelligence, and works with customs and immigration officials. Although it predominantly deals with Afro-Caribbean and black British communities, discussions are underway to examine setting up a specialist unit to tackle Asian gun crime.
Though Thompson says Trident has ‘made great strides’, I’ve sensed reservations as to its effectiveness among young black people. The reluctance of witnesses to testify is a problem, drugs are still readily available, and the flow of illegal weapons from abroad continues. But Thompson says the most shocking change in ten years of Trident is the drop in the age of those involved: ‘Now it’s 13-year-olds doing the shootings. And it’s become a natural way of life for them.’
Neezy of the Younger Peckham Boys
Neezy, 28, elder in the Younger Peckham Boys gang
‘Younger Peckham Boys started in 1991. We were out of school and didn’t have anything to do. The police used to follow us in riot vans while we were travelling on the bus to Elephant & Castle. We used to do a bit of graffiti. It was about having fun and creating hype. We never imagined it would escalate [into gun warfare].
‘When the media and the police talk about gangs and guns, they get it all confused. The use of guns is more common, but why do they always blame everything on drugs? When someone gets shot, they always say: “We’re keeping an open mind in case this is drug related.” The majority of the time, it’s not. I should know: I’ve been shot in various parts of my body, my brother’s been shot, and we’ve both been arrested for firearms.
‘For example, Ghetto Boys [a New Cross gang] told journalist Donal MacIntyre: “If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen [motions slitting throat]”. MacIntyre tried to put words into people’s mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm [the nickname for Peckham], and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It’s d been going on since ’78, handed down from generation to generation.
‘Sometimes violence happens as a way of releasing frustration. Labour made 3,000 new laws in the last decade, prohibiting what we do. It takes 22 people to have a game of football. If 22 black males met in McDonald’s in Peckham to go to a match together, they would be dispersed. Under dispersal laws, you can be arrested. And they wonder why the jails are full?
‘More parents are out of the house working. This creates a situation with latch-key children, with no parents at home to check on what they’re doing. But when kids get an Asbo, they blame the parents. You can’t work and bring up your children at the same time; it’s not feasible. Don’t call them feral children!
‘In my opinion, Operation Trident’s interest is to look good, not prevent gun crime. The society we’re living in has created the problems, yet it’s us on the streets, the young black males, who get the blame. The criminal justice system provides jobs for police, judges and solicitors and no one’s really interested in rehabilitation. Probation didn’t visit me before I was released from prison. I didn’t even get any home leave to reintroduce me into society. They kicked me out with £46 in my pocket. And they expect people not to commit crimes?
‘When it comes to the prevention of gun crime, education and providing more community centres are key factors. If young people can enjoy themselves while developing skills, it would keep them occupied and motivated. I think that faith and a relationship with God is important. How can you exclude God from schools and from society and still expect things to go well? It’s only because of the grace of God that I am alive today. I hope that by that same grace, eventually I will be able to turn my life around. It would also help to have politicians who can relate to situations they have to deal with. If you’ve never been worried about feeding your kids, how can you relate to a poor person’s situation?’
Detective chief superintendent Helen Ball, head of Operation Trident
‘Trident has worked, but we’re certainly not at the end of any process. I think the most worrying trend has been the increasing involvement of young people in shootings and a rise in teenagers as victims. Our community engagement team has been doing an enormous amount in schools, talking to young people about what it means to make a decision to obtain a firearm. Whether they’re going to buy it or hire it, simply getting hold of a firearm is a criminal act. If they go on to use it, that’s another crime, for which people are sentenced for long periods.
‘Some say there are not enough black officers in Trident. First of all, 8 per cent of Trident’s officers are from black and ethnic minority communities. But we are a unit dealing with very violent crime and high-risk criminals that requires experienced detectives. The pool of experienced officers doesn’t contain many who are from black and ethnic minority communities, though they are coming through the organisation. What matters is the skills of each officer, their empathy, their compassion.
‘I think an officer’s skin colour does make a difference to families of people who have been killed. If a family sees someone from the same background, it helps build rapport. The family is able to give us information and work with the investigation. We haven’t experienced a lack of cooperation from the black community. It’s tremendously brave of people to come forward and they do – not only with intelligence, but to give evidence. They are very clear about the fact that shootings are an absolute blight on black communities. They don’t want these gunmen in their midst.’
Uanu Seshmi, director of the Boyhood to Manhood Foundation, Peckham
‘I believe Trident’s time has passed. The force should either be integrated into the rest of the Met or disbanded completely, with a new focus on eastern European criminal activity. Alternatively, Trident needs to organise its structure better. One of the problems is that you have a white police force investigating black people. It would be better to have more high-ranking black police officers. White officers have taken the lead and it looks like black people cannot lead themselves. It gives the impression that there’s a fear within the police of having high-ranking black people.
‘Lately black people haven’t come forth to help the police. They did when Trident first started. We welcomed Trident because it was initiated by the black community, let’s make that clear. But it’s appalling to see that the police only had 8 per cent recruitment rates of ethnic minorities. It is so white-led. Is Trident still relevant? This idea of black-on-black violence was a term coined by South African police and it was a racist thing. If white people murder each other, you don’t hear of “white-on-white crime”.
‘We need a public health perspective to this, not a criminal justice perspective. Smoking is a public health concern, right? Therefore, gun
violence and knife violence is a public health concern because it ends up killing people and harming lives. You need to prevent it before it’s crossed the line. That’s far more important than blaming parents, blaming young people, putting metal detectors in schools and sentencing young people.’
Boris Johnson, MP and Conservative mayoral candidate
‘I have already announced a five-point plan to tackle gun and knife crime, because we cannot have another year like last, where 27 teenagers lost their lives. First, I will drive out the political correctness that has infected the police and has resulted in an avalanche of paperwork that is keeping them off the streets. Second, I will consider giving the police hand-held scanners to use at major events and stations. Third, I will direct the London Development Agency (LDA) to fund community groups that provide mentoring services, so that kids are steered away from crime at an early age. Fourth, I will make sure a part of the LDA budget is used only for sports schemes, so there is an alternative to crime. And fifth, I will amend the London Plan, so that a greater emphasis is placed on designing out crime, so that the estates of the future are well-lit and secure.’
Anonymous club owner, Shoreditch
‘I don’t even feel that Operation Trident exists. I haven’t ever met an officer or anyone who has said that they’re from Operation Trident; they’re certainly not visible to me. There’s definitely more gun crime on Shoreditch High Street. A few years ago there was none, or much less. It has a devastating effect on my business. The council and local authority are harder on bars – they restrict opening hours, they make it harder to operate – because of crime, they say, but they’re not solving anything. They’re just using gun crime as an excuse to tell you what to do. It’s a good way for them to boss us around without fixing anything.’
David McFarlane, general secretary, Black Police Officers Association (BPA)
‘When Trident was established there was serious unease relating to what had been a lack of response in the black community to a call for information. Today, there still isn’t trust, the community still isn’t coming forward. The BPA has suggested holding public meetings to establish community cohesion with Trident and address the problem of people not coming forward.
‘It would be advantageous to have more black officers and more black staff in management roles. Trident needs to look at making more effort to use more preventative methods through working closely with schools, hospitals and, most importantly, young people.
‘Exclusion from schools is a big problem. Once kids are on the streets they become involved in crime, and the black community needs to take responsibility for what is going on.
‘I get the same sort of response from the black community towards me, dealing with this issue, as I would if I was a white officer; lots of people simply don’t like the police. That said, on the whole, black officers have a fantastic relationship with the black community. But the new powers to stop and search are not the way forward. Ninety-seven per cent of black people are not involved in the criminal justice system. It is wrong to demonise all young black men.’
Juanita Arthur, sister of Arian Arthur, 22, who was murdered in November 2006
‘My brother was on a night out at Jam, a club in Shoreditch, celebrating his friend’s birthday. He was talking to a girl there, when one of the men in the bar started saying to him, “What are you south London boys doing here, drinking Champagne and talking to our girls?” My brother said he didn’t know that the girl was with them – she said she wasn’t – so my brother turned back to his friends. The same man started on his friend; he knocked his drink over and things started getting heated. My brother pulled his friend out of the way and told him to ignore the man. My brother started dancing and chatting to his friends.
‘Ten minutes later he was shot twice in the back while he was dancing. One bullet went right through him and grazed someone else. His back was turned; he didn’t have time to run away or see what was going on. He died on the dancefloor. My brother was six foot two, good-looking and charismatic. He wasn’t involved in gangs or anything like that, his death was senseless.
‘Despite being investigated by Operation Trident, the murderers still haven’t been convicted. Two men were charged and the case was due to start in January 2008, but on the day, the case was dropped as the judge said there was not enough evidence to convict them. We are still waiting for justice. At first, I thought Trident dealt with the case well. I was full of hope, but now I have lost all faith and hope.
‘There is a problem that not enough people from our community come forward. They are scared of repercussions. But it is time for the black community to speak up. If people had spoken up my brother would still be alive. I just feel pure anger and hatred for the killers. I can’t forgive them. When people read the statistics that 27 people have been killed in the last year, it’s just a statistic to them; I wish people could see the damage that goes on after those deaths.’
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate
‘I will combat gun crime by building on my relationship with the black community from my time as borough commander in Brixton. I will expand Operation Trident from investigations of black-on-black murders to proactive steps to take guns off the streets. We need to see more intelligence-led stop and searches targeting criminals.’
Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
‘The Met needs support for Operation Trident, and we need a strong and clear commitment to maintaining the high levels of financial support for the Met. To address how people become dragged into gang and gun culture we need to massively invest in our young people. This means, for a third mayoral term, bringing back youth centres for our young people – a £78 million programme to set up youth centres and improve youth services to provide safe facilities outside school hours. This is now possible due to a funding scheme agreed between the Government and myself. Finally, a greater share of the millions of pounds in profits made by serious criminals should be returned to London. We need to, quite literally, turn crack houses into community centres.’
http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke ... leAfterMpu
Phil Fisk
Posted: Tue Feb 19 2008
Ten years ago, the Met launched Operation Trident, an attempt to tackle black-on-black gun crime. Yet London firearms offences are still on the rise. Rebecca Taylor looks back on a hit-and-miss decade, Danielle Aumord talks to a gang member and Simone Baird speaks to others staring down the barrel on the capital‘s frontline
In March 1998, after a string of shootings in Lambeth and Brent, the Met Police launched its anti-gun crime unit, Operation Trident. A decade on, Trident has been used as a blueprint for tackling gun crime country-wide. Yet last year firearm offences in the capital rose by 4 per cent: there were 3,459 ‘gun-enabled’ crimes in 2007, including 30 gun murders; of those, nine victims were aged 18 or under. So is Trident really working?
‘Gun crime began to escalate following a series of south London gang executions in the late ’90s,’ says Tony Thompson, a former Time Out news editor who has written several books on gang culture. ‘Previous Met operations were seen as putting down the black community. Trident, from the start, was intelligence-led and had strong links with the black community.’
When I came to cover Thompson’s patch for TO in 2002, the Met was claiming success for containing gun crime in Brent, an area dubbed the ‘gun capital of the UK’ by the press. Officers from Harlesden told me that those involved in gun crime were from ‘a criminal minority’. But that wasn’t my experience visiting the area’s Stonebridge estate, where one young resident told me: ‘Seeing a shooting round here is like spotting a bus.’
Since then, a succession of other areas have worn the unwanted mantle of ‘gun capital’, most recently the Brixton/Clapham/Streatham area of south-west London thanks to the shootings of three boys in one week last February. But Trident has had significant successes, including the conviction in 2004 of Owen Clark, aka Father Fowl, a drugs kingpin whose detention is reckoned to have been a major factor in the decline in shootings in north-west London.
Trident now has around 300 officers. As well as conducting its own investigations, it helps local police investigate shootings and collate intelligence, and works with customs and immigration officials. Although it predominantly deals with Afro-Caribbean and black British communities, discussions are underway to examine setting up a specialist unit to tackle Asian gun crime.
Though Thompson says Trident has ‘made great strides’, I’ve sensed reservations as to its effectiveness among young black people. The reluctance of witnesses to testify is a problem, drugs are still readily available, and the flow of illegal weapons from abroad continues. But Thompson says the most shocking change in ten years of Trident is the drop in the age of those involved: ‘Now it’s 13-year-olds doing the shootings. And it’s become a natural way of life for them.’
Neezy of the Younger Peckham Boys
Neezy, 28, elder in the Younger Peckham Boys gang
‘Younger Peckham Boys started in 1991. We were out of school and didn’t have anything to do. The police used to follow us in riot vans while we were travelling on the bus to Elephant & Castle. We used to do a bit of graffiti. It was about having fun and creating hype. We never imagined it would escalate [into gun warfare].
‘When the media and the police talk about gangs and guns, they get it all confused. The use of guns is more common, but why do they always blame everything on drugs? When someone gets shot, they always say: “We’re keeping an open mind in case this is drug related.” The majority of the time, it’s not. I should know: I’ve been shot in various parts of my body, my brother’s been shot, and we’ve both been arrested for firearms.
‘For example, Ghetto Boys [a New Cross gang] told journalist Donal MacIntyre: “If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen [motions slitting throat]”. MacIntyre tried to put words into people’s mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm [the nickname for Peckham], and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It’s d been going on since ’78, handed down from generation to generation.
‘Sometimes violence happens as a way of releasing frustration. Labour made 3,000 new laws in the last decade, prohibiting what we do. It takes 22 people to have a game of football. If 22 black males met in McDonald’s in Peckham to go to a match together, they would be dispersed. Under dispersal laws, you can be arrested. And they wonder why the jails are full?
‘More parents are out of the house working. This creates a situation with latch-key children, with no parents at home to check on what they’re doing. But when kids get an Asbo, they blame the parents. You can’t work and bring up your children at the same time; it’s not feasible. Don’t call them feral children!
‘In my opinion, Operation Trident’s interest is to look good, not prevent gun crime. The society we’re living in has created the problems, yet it’s us on the streets, the young black males, who get the blame. The criminal justice system provides jobs for police, judges and solicitors and no one’s really interested in rehabilitation. Probation didn’t visit me before I was released from prison. I didn’t even get any home leave to reintroduce me into society. They kicked me out with £46 in my pocket. And they expect people not to commit crimes?
‘When it comes to the prevention of gun crime, education and providing more community centres are key factors. If young people can enjoy themselves while developing skills, it would keep them occupied and motivated. I think that faith and a relationship with God is important. How can you exclude God from schools and from society and still expect things to go well? It’s only because of the grace of God that I am alive today. I hope that by that same grace, eventually I will be able to turn my life around. It would also help to have politicians who can relate to situations they have to deal with. If you’ve never been worried about feeding your kids, how can you relate to a poor person’s situation?’
Detective chief superintendent Helen Ball, head of Operation Trident
‘Trident has worked, but we’re certainly not at the end of any process. I think the most worrying trend has been the increasing involvement of young people in shootings and a rise in teenagers as victims. Our community engagement team has been doing an enormous amount in schools, talking to young people about what it means to make a decision to obtain a firearm. Whether they’re going to buy it or hire it, simply getting hold of a firearm is a criminal act. If they go on to use it, that’s another crime, for which people are sentenced for long periods.
‘Some say there are not enough black officers in Trident. First of all, 8 per cent of Trident’s officers are from black and ethnic minority communities. But we are a unit dealing with very violent crime and high-risk criminals that requires experienced detectives. The pool of experienced officers doesn’t contain many who are from black and ethnic minority communities, though they are coming through the organisation. What matters is the skills of each officer, their empathy, their compassion.
‘I think an officer’s skin colour does make a difference to families of people who have been killed. If a family sees someone from the same background, it helps build rapport. The family is able to give us information and work with the investigation. We haven’t experienced a lack of cooperation from the black community. It’s tremendously brave of people to come forward and they do – not only with intelligence, but to give evidence. They are very clear about the fact that shootings are an absolute blight on black communities. They don’t want these gunmen in their midst.’
Uanu Seshmi, director of the Boyhood to Manhood Foundation, Peckham
‘I believe Trident’s time has passed. The force should either be integrated into the rest of the Met or disbanded completely, with a new focus on eastern European criminal activity. Alternatively, Trident needs to organise its structure better. One of the problems is that you have a white police force investigating black people. It would be better to have more high-ranking black police officers. White officers have taken the lead and it looks like black people cannot lead themselves. It gives the impression that there’s a fear within the police of having high-ranking black people.
‘Lately black people haven’t come forth to help the police. They did when Trident first started. We welcomed Trident because it was initiated by the black community, let’s make that clear. But it’s appalling to see that the police only had 8 per cent recruitment rates of ethnic minorities. It is so white-led. Is Trident still relevant? This idea of black-on-black violence was a term coined by South African police and it was a racist thing. If white people murder each other, you don’t hear of “white-on-white crime”.
‘We need a public health perspective to this, not a criminal justice perspective. Smoking is a public health concern, right? Therefore, gun
violence and knife violence is a public health concern because it ends up killing people and harming lives. You need to prevent it before it’s crossed the line. That’s far more important than blaming parents, blaming young people, putting metal detectors in schools and sentencing young people.’
Boris Johnson, MP and Conservative mayoral candidate
‘I have already announced a five-point plan to tackle gun and knife crime, because we cannot have another year like last, where 27 teenagers lost their lives. First, I will drive out the political correctness that has infected the police and has resulted in an avalanche of paperwork that is keeping them off the streets. Second, I will consider giving the police hand-held scanners to use at major events and stations. Third, I will direct the London Development Agency (LDA) to fund community groups that provide mentoring services, so that kids are steered away from crime at an early age. Fourth, I will make sure a part of the LDA budget is used only for sports schemes, so there is an alternative to crime. And fifth, I will amend the London Plan, so that a greater emphasis is placed on designing out crime, so that the estates of the future are well-lit and secure.’
Anonymous club owner, Shoreditch
‘I don’t even feel that Operation Trident exists. I haven’t ever met an officer or anyone who has said that they’re from Operation Trident; they’re certainly not visible to me. There’s definitely more gun crime on Shoreditch High Street. A few years ago there was none, or much less. It has a devastating effect on my business. The council and local authority are harder on bars – they restrict opening hours, they make it harder to operate – because of crime, they say, but they’re not solving anything. They’re just using gun crime as an excuse to tell you what to do. It’s a good way for them to boss us around without fixing anything.’
David McFarlane, general secretary, Black Police Officers Association (BPA)
‘When Trident was established there was serious unease relating to what had been a lack of response in the black community to a call for information. Today, there still isn’t trust, the community still isn’t coming forward. The BPA has suggested holding public meetings to establish community cohesion with Trident and address the problem of people not coming forward.
‘It would be advantageous to have more black officers and more black staff in management roles. Trident needs to look at making more effort to use more preventative methods through working closely with schools, hospitals and, most importantly, young people.
‘Exclusion from schools is a big problem. Once kids are on the streets they become involved in crime, and the black community needs to take responsibility for what is going on.
‘I get the same sort of response from the black community towards me, dealing with this issue, as I would if I was a white officer; lots of people simply don’t like the police. That said, on the whole, black officers have a fantastic relationship with the black community. But the new powers to stop and search are not the way forward. Ninety-seven per cent of black people are not involved in the criminal justice system. It is wrong to demonise all young black men.’
Juanita Arthur, sister of Arian Arthur, 22, who was murdered in November 2006
‘My brother was on a night out at Jam, a club in Shoreditch, celebrating his friend’s birthday. He was talking to a girl there, when one of the men in the bar started saying to him, “What are you south London boys doing here, drinking Champagne and talking to our girls?” My brother said he didn’t know that the girl was with them – she said she wasn’t – so my brother turned back to his friends. The same man started on his friend; he knocked his drink over and things started getting heated. My brother pulled his friend out of the way and told him to ignore the man. My brother started dancing and chatting to his friends.
‘Ten minutes later he was shot twice in the back while he was dancing. One bullet went right through him and grazed someone else. His back was turned; he didn’t have time to run away or see what was going on. He died on the dancefloor. My brother was six foot two, good-looking and charismatic. He wasn’t involved in gangs or anything like that, his death was senseless.
‘Despite being investigated by Operation Trident, the murderers still haven’t been convicted. Two men were charged and the case was due to start in January 2008, but on the day, the case was dropped as the judge said there was not enough evidence to convict them. We are still waiting for justice. At first, I thought Trident dealt with the case well. I was full of hope, but now I have lost all faith and hope.
‘There is a problem that not enough people from our community come forward. They are scared of repercussions. But it is time for the black community to speak up. If people had spoken up my brother would still be alive. I just feel pure anger and hatred for the killers. I can’t forgive them. When people read the statistics that 27 people have been killed in the last year, it’s just a statistic to them; I wish people could see the damage that goes on after those deaths.’
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate
‘I will combat gun crime by building on my relationship with the black community from my time as borough commander in Brixton. I will expand Operation Trident from investigations of black-on-black murders to proactive steps to take guns off the streets. We need to see more intelligence-led stop and searches targeting criminals.’
Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
‘The Met needs support for Operation Trident, and we need a strong and clear commitment to maintaining the high levels of financial support for the Met. To address how people become dragged into gang and gun culture we need to massively invest in our young people. This means, for a third mayoral term, bringing back youth centres for our young people – a £78 million programme to set up youth centres and improve youth services to provide safe facilities outside school hours. This is now possible due to a funding scheme agreed between the Government and myself. Finally, a greater share of the millions of pounds in profits made by serious criminals should be returned to London. We need to, quite literally, turn crack houses into community centres.’
http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke ... leAfterMpu
- Greaze
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:34 am
Two teenage boys stabbed ... it's just another day of gang warfare in Peckham
Benedict Moore-Bridger, Evening Standard
14.05.08
Look here too
Airport-style scanners on the streets
Revealed: 100 stabbings in London this year
Girls are becoming as violent as boys
Six in court over student's death
Man killed in Oxford St was on bail for horrific acid rape
Two teenagers stabbed less than a mile apart are the latest victims of London's escalating gang violence.
The boys, both 18, were attacked within half an hour in south-east London in what are believed to be tit-for-tat knifings.
The first attack happened in a fast-food restaurant in Rye Lane, Peckham, at 5pm on Monday.
Thirty minutes later, a second boy was stabbed in front of a group of children as he made his way to a friend's house on the North Peckham estate - where schoolboy Damilola Taylor was fatally stabbed in November 2000.
Witnesses described how a gang of 10 masked teenagers rushed into Morleys Chicken in Rye Lane to assault three rivals in a planned attack.
Terrified diners fled in terror as the thugs, believed to be part of an Old Kent Road gang, stormed the building wearing bandannas, dark sunglasses and baseball caps. One worker, who asked not to be named, said the victim was pinned down while he was stabbed. He said: "He had come in with friends and was sitting on a table waiting for food when about 10 of them rushed in and attacked them.
They were all younger than 20. They were fighting and kicking, then one got him round the neck and another came in and stabbed him in the side. Then they all disappeared on bicycles. It was obviously planned.
"The guy was bleeding and stumbled outside and fell in the road. One customer helped him and tied his jacket around him.
"A girl who was in the shop seemed to know them - she said they were an Old Kent Road gang. Things like this happen all the time."
Barely 30 minutes later, a second 18-year-old was knifed by two men who pulled up in a car on the North Peckham estate.
Children as young as seven who were playing outside saw the injured victim stumbling and holding his chest following the daylight attack.
Lennox Jackson, 52, who lives on the estate, said his son had seen the violence.
"They drove up in a car, a Renault Laguna, and parked further down the street," Mr Jackson said.
"The kids were playing football outside. My son saw him holding his chest. Then all the police turned up."
Another witness told how the boy was taken into his friend's house for treatment before being taken to hospital.
She said: "I heard screaming. I came outside and he was sitting up on the wall as the paramedics were trying to help him. All the neighbours came out."
Residents said the attack could have been retribution for the earlier incident.
Both teenagers were last night in a stable condition in hospital.
Police were today searching for a 16-year-old believed to be responsible for the first stabbing.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said officers were keeping an open mind as to the motives of the stabbing but said they were examining the possibility they were gang-related.
Benedict Moore-Bridger, Evening Standard
14.05.08
Look here too
Airport-style scanners on the streets
Revealed: 100 stabbings in London this year
Girls are becoming as violent as boys
Six in court over student's death
Man killed in Oxford St was on bail for horrific acid rape
Two teenagers stabbed less than a mile apart are the latest victims of London's escalating gang violence.
The boys, both 18, were attacked within half an hour in south-east London in what are believed to be tit-for-tat knifings.
The first attack happened in a fast-food restaurant in Rye Lane, Peckham, at 5pm on Monday.
Thirty minutes later, a second boy was stabbed in front of a group of children as he made his way to a friend's house on the North Peckham estate - where schoolboy Damilola Taylor was fatally stabbed in November 2000.
Witnesses described how a gang of 10 masked teenagers rushed into Morleys Chicken in Rye Lane to assault three rivals in a planned attack.
Terrified diners fled in terror as the thugs, believed to be part of an Old Kent Road gang, stormed the building wearing bandannas, dark sunglasses and baseball caps. One worker, who asked not to be named, said the victim was pinned down while he was stabbed. He said: "He had come in with friends and was sitting on a table waiting for food when about 10 of them rushed in and attacked them.
They were all younger than 20. They were fighting and kicking, then one got him round the neck and another came in and stabbed him in the side. Then they all disappeared on bicycles. It was obviously planned.
"The guy was bleeding and stumbled outside and fell in the road. One customer helped him and tied his jacket around him.
"A girl who was in the shop seemed to know them - she said they were an Old Kent Road gang. Things like this happen all the time."
Barely 30 minutes later, a second 18-year-old was knifed by two men who pulled up in a car on the North Peckham estate.
Children as young as seven who were playing outside saw the injured victim stumbling and holding his chest following the daylight attack.
Lennox Jackson, 52, who lives on the estate, said his son had seen the violence.
"They drove up in a car, a Renault Laguna, and parked further down the street," Mr Jackson said.
"The kids were playing football outside. My son saw him holding his chest. Then all the police turned up."
Another witness told how the boy was taken into his friend's house for treatment before being taken to hospital.
She said: "I heard screaming. I came outside and he was sitting up on the wall as the paramedics were trying to help him. All the neighbours came out."
Residents said the attack could have been retribution for the earlier incident.
Both teenagers were last night in a stable condition in hospital.
Police were today searching for a 16-year-old believed to be responsible for the first stabbing.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said officers were keeping an open mind as to the motives of the stabbing but said they were examining the possibility they were gang-related.
- Greaze
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Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:40 am
The Peckham gang culture that killed my sister
Four killings in three days in south London, along with Ruth Okechukwu’s murder, has left a community in fear, says Deirdre Fernand
Beatrice Okechukwu remembers her sister Ruth as a real tomboy. No pink, God forbid, and no girlie things. “You could never get her in a dress. Not even for church on Sundays,” she says. Even more than dresses, Ruth hated the camera. So today, as Beatrice pays tribute to her 18-year-old sister who was stabbed to death in south London 17 months ago, there are almost no family photographs to share. Beatrice, 32, who works for a charity helping the homeless, can offer only memories.
Beatrice and her family, her father Ben, a pastor at a local Pentecostal church, her mother Pauline and her two brothers were at the Old Bailey last month to see justice done — and to come face to face with Ruth’s killer. Roberto Malasi, 18, pleaded guilty to two unrelated murders in the same neighbourhood.
The Angolan refugee was living in Peckham, south London, when he shot Zainab Kalokoh, 33, at a christening party. Two weeks later, in September 2005, he stabbed Ruth because she had shown “disrespect” towards him. He allegedly told friends that she had eavesdropped on a telephone conversation. Two days later he armed himself with a knife and, along with a gang of seven youths, lay in wait for her. Malasi, who was remanded in custody, will be sentenced this week.
Ruth was murdered in a quiet street on the outskirts of Peckham, an area that has dominated the headlines for the past week. Last Tuesday a 15-year-old boy, Michael Dosunmu, was shot when gunmen burst into his home. His was the third murder in four days in the area. Last Saturday Javorie Crighton, 21, on bail for drug offences, was stabbed to death. The following day a Nigerian man in his forties was shot dead; a man with him was wounded. The previous week James Smarrt-Ford, 16, was shot dead at Streatham ice rink, just a few miles away.
Since Ruth’s death her family have appealed to their local community to help to stamp out the violent culture that is rife on the streets of Britain. “I feel shocked and saddened by what has happened,” Beatrice says of the recent murders. “And for the first time I am beginning to feel afraid in my neighbourhood.”
To help to combat the problem, she wants to see the introduction of after-school clubs in secondary schools to help to keep children occupied and off the streets. “But parents have to play their part, too,” she says. “It can’t just be up to teachers. Mothers and fathers need to know where their children are, what they are doing and who they are with.”
And it’s not just a Peckham problem. “I think what happened to Ruth could have happened anywhere in Britain, in any city, any town and any street,” she adds.
The statistics prove her point. Figures from the Home Office reveal that the number of deaths from sharp instruments such as knives between 1998 and 1999 stood at 202. But by 2003 that number had increased by more than 25% to 268.
What is happening on the streets of Peckham? Is it worse than any other deprived area? Camilla Batmangheldijh, who runs Kids Company, a charity for disadvantaged children, says the trafficking of firearms in that area is the only factor that distinguishes it from the rest of Britain. “These murders stem from a street economy that revolves around the drug trade and other criminal activity,” she says. “The savage aspects of the human being are having to be deployed in order to survive.”
For Batmangheldijh these young gang members are not feral children but “forgotten” ones who have been failed by their families and are often disturbed. They may have absent fathers or have parents who are drug addicts or who are mentally ill: “Their basic needs of love, food and shelter are not being met. They really do have nowhere to go.”
When that happens, she adds, society in the form of youth workers and mentors must act in loco parentis. She is also calling for the introduction of centres across the country, run by trained staff and youth workers, where they can drop in: “They need human relationships which are so lacking in their lives.”
Ruth was the youngest of four children born to Ben and Pauline after they left their native Nigeria in the early 1970s. They settled in an estate off the Old Kent Road, southeast London. With a 13-year age gap between them, Beatrice felt more like a second mother to Ruth than a sister: “When I left home she was still a child. But we were close in that we would always talk about her life and her plans.” During one of their last conversations, she encouraged her sister, who was still living at home, to aim for university. Ruth, studying for a BTEC at a west London college, talked of reading sports science at Cambridge or Brunel.
The family has been piecing together what happened to Ruth in the days leading up to her death. On Friday, September 9, she had gone to visit a female friend at her house. The girl took a call on her mobile phone from a boy the family now knows to have been Malasi. He was abusive to her. Ruth was incensed and seized the phone and began arguing with him.
On Saturday evening she went to a birthday party attended by Malasi. He bumped into her and she “nudged” him. According to various accounts heard by the family, he planned to kill her there, but she was surrounded by friends.
On Sunday, the last day of Ruth’s life, her parents went to church. That afternoon she walked round the corner to a girlfriend’s house. What happened next is unclear, but it seems that they arranged to meet a boy later on. The pair walked to a quiet road where Malasi was sitting in a car waiting for them.
Ruth got in beside the boy she was meeting, whereupon a gang of seven youths plus Malasi came from nowhere. She was stabbed in the chest by Malasi as she sat in the car. She managed to get out and reach for her mobile phone and was in the middle of calling for help when she slumped on the pavement. Passers-by called an ambulance.
She was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival at nearby King’s College hospital. In denial, Beatrice asked to see Ruth’s body. Cuts to her hand and face showed that she had put up a fight. “Her eyes and mouth were open. She looked in shock.” It is a cruel image to have to carry around. Beatrice believes that Ruth was lured to her death and that she was simply too trusting. “She was streetwise but not streetwise enough,” she says.
Four killings in three days in south London, along with Ruth Okechukwu’s murder, has left a community in fear, says Deirdre Fernand
Beatrice Okechukwu remembers her sister Ruth as a real tomboy. No pink, God forbid, and no girlie things. “You could never get her in a dress. Not even for church on Sundays,” she says. Even more than dresses, Ruth hated the camera. So today, as Beatrice pays tribute to her 18-year-old sister who was stabbed to death in south London 17 months ago, there are almost no family photographs to share. Beatrice, 32, who works for a charity helping the homeless, can offer only memories.
Beatrice and her family, her father Ben, a pastor at a local Pentecostal church, her mother Pauline and her two brothers were at the Old Bailey last month to see justice done — and to come face to face with Ruth’s killer. Roberto Malasi, 18, pleaded guilty to two unrelated murders in the same neighbourhood.
The Angolan refugee was living in Peckham, south London, when he shot Zainab Kalokoh, 33, at a christening party. Two weeks later, in September 2005, he stabbed Ruth because she had shown “disrespect” towards him. He allegedly told friends that she had eavesdropped on a telephone conversation. Two days later he armed himself with a knife and, along with a gang of seven youths, lay in wait for her. Malasi, who was remanded in custody, will be sentenced this week.
Ruth was murdered in a quiet street on the outskirts of Peckham, an area that has dominated the headlines for the past week. Last Tuesday a 15-year-old boy, Michael Dosunmu, was shot when gunmen burst into his home. His was the third murder in four days in the area. Last Saturday Javorie Crighton, 21, on bail for drug offences, was stabbed to death. The following day a Nigerian man in his forties was shot dead; a man with him was wounded. The previous week James Smarrt-Ford, 16, was shot dead at Streatham ice rink, just a few miles away.
Since Ruth’s death her family have appealed to their local community to help to stamp out the violent culture that is rife on the streets of Britain. “I feel shocked and saddened by what has happened,” Beatrice says of the recent murders. “And for the first time I am beginning to feel afraid in my neighbourhood.”
To help to combat the problem, she wants to see the introduction of after-school clubs in secondary schools to help to keep children occupied and off the streets. “But parents have to play their part, too,” she says. “It can’t just be up to teachers. Mothers and fathers need to know where their children are, what they are doing and who they are with.”
And it’s not just a Peckham problem. “I think what happened to Ruth could have happened anywhere in Britain, in any city, any town and any street,” she adds.
The statistics prove her point. Figures from the Home Office reveal that the number of deaths from sharp instruments such as knives between 1998 and 1999 stood at 202. But by 2003 that number had increased by more than 25% to 268.
What is happening on the streets of Peckham? Is it worse than any other deprived area? Camilla Batmangheldijh, who runs Kids Company, a charity for disadvantaged children, says the trafficking of firearms in that area is the only factor that distinguishes it from the rest of Britain. “These murders stem from a street economy that revolves around the drug trade and other criminal activity,” she says. “The savage aspects of the human being are having to be deployed in order to survive.”
For Batmangheldijh these young gang members are not feral children but “forgotten” ones who have been failed by their families and are often disturbed. They may have absent fathers or have parents who are drug addicts or who are mentally ill: “Their basic needs of love, food and shelter are not being met. They really do have nowhere to go.”
When that happens, she adds, society in the form of youth workers and mentors must act in loco parentis. She is also calling for the introduction of centres across the country, run by trained staff and youth workers, where they can drop in: “They need human relationships which are so lacking in their lives.”
Ruth was the youngest of four children born to Ben and Pauline after they left their native Nigeria in the early 1970s. They settled in an estate off the Old Kent Road, southeast London. With a 13-year age gap between them, Beatrice felt more like a second mother to Ruth than a sister: “When I left home she was still a child. But we were close in that we would always talk about her life and her plans.” During one of their last conversations, she encouraged her sister, who was still living at home, to aim for university. Ruth, studying for a BTEC at a west London college, talked of reading sports science at Cambridge or Brunel.
The family has been piecing together what happened to Ruth in the days leading up to her death. On Friday, September 9, she had gone to visit a female friend at her house. The girl took a call on her mobile phone from a boy the family now knows to have been Malasi. He was abusive to her. Ruth was incensed and seized the phone and began arguing with him.
On Saturday evening she went to a birthday party attended by Malasi. He bumped into her and she “nudged” him. According to various accounts heard by the family, he planned to kill her there, but she was surrounded by friends.
On Sunday, the last day of Ruth’s life, her parents went to church. That afternoon she walked round the corner to a girlfriend’s house. What happened next is unclear, but it seems that they arranged to meet a boy later on. The pair walked to a quiet road where Malasi was sitting in a car waiting for them.
Ruth got in beside the boy she was meeting, whereupon a gang of seven youths plus Malasi came from nowhere. She was stabbed in the chest by Malasi as she sat in the car. She managed to get out and reach for her mobile phone and was in the middle of calling for help when she slumped on the pavement. Passers-by called an ambulance.
She was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival at nearby King’s College hospital. In denial, Beatrice asked to see Ruth’s body. Cuts to her hand and face showed that she had put up a fight. “Her eyes and mouth were open. She looked in shock.” It is a cruel image to have to carry around. Beatrice believes that Ruth was lured to her death and that she was simply too trusting. “She was streetwise but not streetwise enough,” she says.
- Greaze
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 10:56 am
Original Peckham Boys - Black Gang (feat. Killer Ki, Giggs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QW5GZ3aHE
Giggs - Freestyle (Talkin the Ardest) Spare No1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JrJSVR_ ... re=related
PYG - Peckyside / Fuck Gullyside (Brixton Gas Gang Diss)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlWRMEGyyAo
PYG (T.Snap, Ounce, Y.Size, Y.Sykez) - Freestyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pclq4QQPDXE
PYG (Stigs, Young Gunna.D, T.Snap, Shooting Size) - Coming Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g35raDQ95bM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QW5GZ3aHE
Giggs - Freestyle (Talkin the Ardest) Spare No1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JrJSVR_ ... re=related
PYG - Peckyside / Fuck Gullyside (Brixton Gas Gang Diss)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlWRMEGyyAo
PYG (T.Snap, Ounce, Y.Size, Y.Sykez) - Freestyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pclq4QQPDXE
PYG (Stigs, Young Gunna.D, T.Snap, Shooting Size) - Coming Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g35raDQ95bM
- Greaze
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- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by Greaze » May 1st, 2009, 12:48 pm
PECKHAM:
Some of the oldest gangs from around Peckham were the Gloucester Grove Boys and Night Jackyls and some Untouchables as far back as the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s there were North Peckham Boys, Yellow Brick Massive, Peckham Grove Boys, Outlaws and Acorn Crew all from the estates within SE15 and Peckham.
As is common in many long established gang areas of London new generations periodically replace older generations and with it often come new gang names. The Peckham Boys are the most infamous gang in Southwark and have been mentioned numerous times by the media since the death of Damilola Taylor. Peckham Boys was the main name of the gang for SE15 since the early to mid 1990s. The gang was known to have a number of age based factions such as the Peckham Kids, Younger Younger Peckham Boys, Young Peckham Boys and just Peckham Boys. The gang was spread around Peckham more notably on the Gloucester Grove, North Peckham, Goldsmiths and Penthouse Estates.
A number of cliques within the Peckham Boys were and still are headed by a dozen older well established members. Gangs spread from Peckham to include other areas such as Walworth Road Browning and Heygate Estates, home of Peckham Boys infamous allies the mainly Nigerian Firehouse Crew. More recently the use of Peckham Boys and Young Peckham Boys etc has become more redundant as the gang culture and age demographic has shifted into a new generation and the gang is becoming more commonly referred to as the Black Gang with numerous cliques such as SN1 (Spare No-1), SI (Shoot Instantly), DFA (Dont Fuck Around) etc... Peckham & Peckham Boys
In 1987 the North Peckham Taskforce was targeted, earmarked by Margaret Thatcher for regeneration. The move came after concerns of crime, robbery and youth gangs. After £1million investment problems were supposed to be solved. Then nearly 13 years later there was a big regeneration project again in North Peckham.
The North Peckham estate in the last decade was revamped from run down high rise flats and maisonettes and replaced with 2,000 new homes, a sports and leisure centre and an award winning library at a cost of £290 million. Despite this cost and physical rebuilding the gangs and violence still remain.
Whilst much gang violence is perpetrated amongst and between gang members a number of innocents have been caught up with two of the most well known incidents attributed to the Peckham Boys being that of Damilola Taylor and Michael Dosunmu.
In 2000 the Peckham Boys weren’t anything knew, to the residents of south London they had been staple in the community for over a decade although unbeknown to those outside of London. A series of events relating to the Peckham Boys became more reported in the media and by the end of 2000 the whole of Britain knew of the Peckham Boys.
In the summer of 2000 an 18 year old girl was shot outside a nightclub on the frontline whilst an African restaurant used by older Peckham Boys was raided by police who recovered a .357 handgun, stun gun, CS gas and cannabis. A few weeks later a Young Peckham Boy, aged 12, appeared in court after being found in possession of heroin, crack and £400. A gun battle outside Chicago’s nightclub on the frontline sees eight people wounded. Then in November, just 9 days before the murder of Damilola Taylor, 17 year old Shola Agora of Sceaux Gardens was stabbed and died at Kings College Hospital.
In late 2000, Damilola Taylor, 10, bled to death in a stairwell on the North Peckham Estate, after being stabbed in the leg on his way home from an after school club. The accused in the pro-longed cases were he infamous Preddie Brothers often linked by the media to the Peckham Boys gang although were seen to part of a lesser gang the young Untouchables. The Preddie brothers were responsible for a reign of terror in the Peckham community including a sexual attack on a 12 year old girl prior to Damilola’s death. It wasn’t until 6 years later when they were found guilty and convicted of manslaughter.
In a more recent similarly sad tale (Feb 07) another innocent Michael Dosunmu, 15, was shot dead when gun-men burst into his bedroom on Diamond Street Peckham. Police forged links with the murder three days earlier of 21 year old Javarie Crighton on nearby Southampton Way. The church going teenager however had not been the intended target
Peckham Boys war with Ghetto Boys
Ghetto Boys (a New Cross gang) told journalist Donal MacIntyre: "If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen (motions slitting throat)". MacIntyre tried to put words into people's mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm (the nickname for Peckham), and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It's been going on since the 70s, handed down from generation to generation.
Ghetto and Peckham had never got on, even local football between Peckham and Lewisham teams would be highly charged. Cultural differences between the African contingence of Peckham (situated in the main gang areas of North Peckham) and Caribbean contingence of Deptford, New Cross and Brockley in the past fuelled some of the conflicts.
In 2004 former gang member Eric Akinniranye was chased along Camberwell High Street and gunned down. He had recently been released on temporary licence from prison where he was serving 10 years for drugs and firearms offences. Two gunmen in a Mercedes rammed him from a motorcycle before chasing him bringing him down with a number of shots. The murder took place in broad daylight in full view of two buses and a crowded street of onlookers.
In a more humorous tale in 2004 Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys clashed outside the Urban Music Awards at the Barbican where shots were exchanged when a stray went toward innocent by-stander Helen Kelly. Bizarrely the underwire of her bra deflected the bullet away from her chest and into her right breast. There were 18 shots fired as people left the awards ceremony; Linton Ambursley from Lewisham was jailed for 12 years after admitting wounding with intent.
In September 2006 Jason Gayle-Bent, whose younger brother had been a former Ghetto Boy, was stabbed to death by a mob of Peckham Boys. The murder was reportedly sparked by a row at a party when rival Peckham and Ghetto Boys clashed at a party accusing one another of showing disrespect. Things turned nasty as one man was bottled. Just 24 hours later up to 40 gang members from Peckham armed with knives and a gas gun rode into the Ghetto Estate in New Cross on bikes where Jason was stabbed just yards from his home in Ludwick Mews. The following day shot rang out at a basketball court in Peckham in retaliation. Two of those at the court that day had their home in Peckham raided where police seized a Walther PKK pistol, Mac10, ammunition and class A drugs.
In late 2007 it was another innocent by-stander caught up in a what was a believed gun fight between rival Peckham and Ghetto gang members, although others have suggested intra rather than inter gang violence in the case. Polish nurse Magda Pniewska, 26, was hit in the head by a stray bullet as two teenage gunmen fired at one another in New Cross. “A guy came down the stairs with a bandana covering his face but you could see his eyes change like he thought he was being set up. He pulled out a gun and fired two or three shots at the car. A guy in the car shot back using the bonnet for cover”.
The war of Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys has a long history and rooted within it there have been a number of losses. The younger generation who are not as familiar with the history have in some ways fixed but also disrespected this history. It can be seen as good that Pecknarm and Wooly Road youngers are now allied with New Cross and Deptford so the beef can end and lives can be spared. But, the younger alliance is very disrespectful of the past.
Other Incidents
In 2001 a young man named Marcus Hall and his friends and other members of the Peckham Boys travelled to Luton to a So Solid Crew event at Atmospheres Nightclub. The Peckham Boys were refused entry to the club although some of them managed to get in. The event ended at 2am. As people were leaving the area became blocked with cars and there were several confrontations between various groups. It was in Chapel Street that Peckham Boys became involved in a fight with another group, all those involved were armed with weapons, including Hall who had been carrying a baseball bat. During the confrontation Hall sustained serious injuries and died.
A Peckham Boy was stabbed to death outside a McDonalds drive through in Malt Street, off the Old Kent Road, at around 10pm on 10th September 2003. A murder investigation was set up although police received little response and the CCTV images were too poor to see the suspects. However, after intensive specialist review of the CCTV it appeared the victim was touched on his shoulder by one of his attackers. DNA taken from the victims jumper where he had been touched led police to the main suspect.
A Peckham Boy gang boss was jailed for life in late 2007 after being found in possession of a huge arsenal of guns. Marlon Grandison, 25, was convicted of possessing guns including Mac10s and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
In October 2008 following the inquest of the murdered teen Philip Poru from Peckham it was concluded that he had been murdered by members of a gang known as the Woolwich Somalians. However, the student was seen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and not gang involved. The murder followed tension between the Woolwcih Somalians and the predominantly Nigerian gang T-Block (Thamesmead). It is believed there are allied links between T-Block and the Peckham Boys as both gangs have a large number of Nigerian members, on Poru’s response to have been from Peckham whilst in Woolwich territory it is believed his shooters assumed him to be there on behalf of T-Block who weeks previously had seriously injured 2 Woolwcih gang members in a shooting. To prevent any risk real or perceived Poru was shot dead.
Late 2008, police arrested seven suspected Peckham Boy members described as major and significant players connected with hundreds of violent robberies across London. The members targeted were believed to have been targeting gaming machines and betting shops raking in over £150,000 from crimes in 17 different London Boroughs.
Other Gangs in Southwark
Peckham Boys have for a long time and always will be the most infamous and largest gang in Southwark borough. Although, a hotbed of gang activity and cliques also exist along Walworth Road, home of the Wooly Road Boys, Firehouse Crew, Out to Ball Grey Gang etc based around Walworth Road itself and the Browning and Aylesbury and Heygate Estate. The Walworth Road area and Peckham have had a loose alliance for generations.
Two lesser known gangs London-wide, although both associated with serious crime and drugs, are C-Block (Crawford Estate close to Lambeth and more associated with Brixton gangs and who identify with Red/Blood) and Brooklyn (Old Kent Road area and SE1 gang who identify with dark grey).
Peckham & Peckham Boys
In 1987 the North Peckham Taskforce was targeted, earmarked by Margaret Thatcher for regeneration. The move came after concerns of crime, robbery and youth gangs. After £1million investment problems were supposed to be solved. Then nearly 13 years later there was a big regeneration project again in North Peckham.
The North Peckham estate in the last decade was revamped from run down high rise flats and maisonettes and replaced with 2,000 new homes, a sports and leisure centre and an award winning library at a cost of £290 million. Despite this cost and physical rebuilding the gangs and violence still remain.
Whilst much gang violence is perpetrated amongst and between gang members a number of innocents have been caught up with two of the most well known incidents attributed to the Peckham Boys being that of Damilola Taylor and Michael Dosunmu.
In 2000 the Peckham Boys weren’t anything knew, to the residents of south London they had been staple in the community for over a decade although unbeknown to those outside of London. A series of events relating to the Peckham Boys became more reported in the media and by the end of 2000 the whole of Britain knew of the Peckham Boys.
In the summer of 2000 an 18 year old girl was shot outside a nightclub on the frontline whilst an African restaurant used by older Peckham Boys was raided by police who recovered a .357 handgun, stun gun, CS gas and cannabis. A few weeks later a Young Peckham Boy, aged 12, appeared in court after being found in possession of heroin, crack and £400. A gun battle outside Chicago’s nightclub on the frontline sees eight people wounded. Then in November, just 9 days before the murder of Damilola Taylor, 17 year old Shola Agora of Sceaux Gardens was stabbed and died at Kings College Hospital.
In late 2000, Damilola Taylor, 10, bled to death in a stairwell on the North Peckham Estate, after being stabbed in the leg on his way home from an after school club. The accused in the pro-longed cases were he infamous Preddie Brothers often linked by the media to the Peckham Boys gang although were seen to part of a lesser gang the young Untouchables. The Preddie brothers were responsible for a reign of terror in the Peckham community including a sexual attack on a 12 year old girl prior to Damilola’s death. It wasn’t until 6 years later when they were found guilty and convicted of manslaughter.
In a more recent similarly sad tale (Feb 07) another innocent Michael Dosunmu, 15, was shot dead when gun-men burst into his bedroom on Diamond Street Peckham. Police forged links with the murder three days earlier of 21 year old Javarie Crighton on nearby Southampton Way. The church going teenager however had not been the intended target
Peckham Boys war with Ghetto Boys
Ghetto Boys (a New Cross gang) told journalist Donal MacIntyre: "If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen (motions slitting throat)". MacIntyre tried to put words into people's mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm (the nickname for Peckham), and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It's been going on since the 70s, handed down from generation to generation.
Ghetto and Peckham had never got on, even local football between Peckham and Lewisham teams would be highly charged. Cultural differences between the African contingence of Peckham (situated in the main gang areas of North Peckham) and Caribbean contingence of Deptford, New Cross and Brockley in the past fuelled some of the conflicts.
In 2004 former gang member Eric Akinniranye was chased along Camberwell High Street and gunned down. He had recently been released on temporary licence from prison where he was serving 10 years for drugs and firearms offences. Two gunmen in a Mercedes rammed him from a motorcycle before chasing him bringing him down with a number of shots. The murder took place in broad daylight in full view of two buses and a crowded street of onlookers.
In a more humorous tale in 2004 Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys clashed outside the Urban Music Awards at the Barbican where shots were exchanged when a stray went toward innocent by-stander Helen Kelly. Bizarrely the underwire of her bra deflected the bullet away from her chest and into her right breast. There were 18 shots fired as people left the awards ceremony; Linton Ambursley from Lewisham was jailed for 12 years after admitting wounding with intent.
In September 2006 Jason Gayle-Bent, whose younger brother had been a former Ghetto Boy, was stabbed to death by a mob of Peckham Boys. The murder was reportedly sparked by a row at a party when rival Peckham and Ghetto Boys clashed at a party accusing one another of showing disrespect. Things turned nasty as one man was bottled. Just 24 hours later up to 40 gang members from Peckham armed with knives and a gas gun rode into the Ghetto Estate in New Cross on bikes where Jason was stabbed just yards from his home in Ludwick Mews. The following day shot rang out at a basketball court in Peckham in retaliation. Two of those at the court that day had their home in Peckham raided where police seized a Walther PKK pistol, Mac10, ammunition and class A drugs.
In late 2007 it was another innocent by-stander caught up in a what was a believed gun fight between rival Peckham and Ghetto gang members, although others have suggested intra rather than inter gang violence in the case. Polish nurse Magda Pniewska, 26, was hit in the head by a stray bullet as two teenage gunmen fired at one another in New Cross. “A guy came down the stairs with a bandana covering his face but you could see his eyes change like he thought he was being set up. He pulled out a gun and fired two or three shots at the car. A guy in the car shot back using the bonnet for cover”.
The war of Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys has a long history and rooted within it there have been a number of losses. The younger generation who are not as familiar with the history have in some ways fixed but also disrespected this history. It can be seen as good that Pecknarm and Wooly Road youngers are now allied with New Cross and Deptford so the beef can end and lives can be spared. But, the younger alliance is very disrespectful of the past.
Other Incidents
In 2001 a young man named Marcus Hall and his friends and other members of the Peckham Boys travelled to Luton to a So Solid Crew event at Atmospheres Nightclub. The Peckham Boys were refused entry to the club although some of them managed to get in. The event ended at 2am. As people were leaving the area became blocked with cars and there were several confrontations between various groups. It was in Chapel Street that Peckham Boys became involved in a fight with another group, all those involved were armed with weapons, including Hall who had been carrying a baseball bat. During the confrontation Hall sustained serious injuries and died.
A Peckham Boy was stabbed to death outside a McDonalds drive through in Malt Street, off the Old Kent Road, at around 10pm on 10th September 2003. A murder investigation was set up although police received little response and the CCTV images were too poor to see the suspects. However, after intensive specialist review of the CCTV it appeared the victim was touched on his shoulder by one of his attackers. DNA taken from the victims jumper where he had been touched led police to the main suspect.
A Peckham Boy gang boss was jailed for life in late 2007 after being found in possession of a huge arsenal of guns. Marlon Grandison, 25, was convicted of possessing guns including Mac10s and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
In October 2008 following the inquest of the murdered teen Philip Poru from Peckham it was concluded that he had been murdered by members of a gang known as the Woolwich Somalians. However, the student was seen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and not gang involved. The murder followed tension between the Woolwcih Somalians and the predominantly Nigerian gang T-Block (Thamesmead). It is believed there are allied links between T-Block and the Peckham Boys as both gangs have a large number of Nigerian members, on Poru’s response to have been from Peckham whilst in Woolwich territory it is believed his shooters assumed him to be there on behalf of T-Block who weeks previously had seriously injured 2 Woolwcih gang members in a shooting. To prevent any risk real or perceived Poru was shot dead.
Late 2008, police arrested seven suspected Peckham Boy members described as major and significant players connected with hundreds of violent robberies across London. The members targeted were believed to have been targeting gaming machines and betting shops raking in over £150,000 from crimes in 17 different London Boroughs.
Other Gangs in Southwark
Peckham Boys have for a long time and always will be the most infamous and largest gang in Southwark borough. Although, a hotbed of gang activity and cliques also exist along Walworth Road, home of the Wooly Road Boys, Firehouse Crew, Out to Ball Grey Gang etc based around Walworth Road itself and the Browning and Aylesbury and Heygate Estate. The Walworth Road area and Peckham have had a loose alliance for generations.
Two lesser known gangs London-wide, although both associated with serious crime and drugs, are C-Block (Crawford Estate close to Lambeth and more associated with Brixton gangs and who identify with Red/Blood) and Brooklyn (Old Kent Road area and SE1 gang who identify with dark grey).
http://gangsinlondon.piczo.com/southwark(peckhamarea)?cr=2&vsrc=search_yahoo&linkvar=000044
Some of the oldest gangs from around Peckham were the Gloucester Grove Boys and Night Jackyls and some Untouchables as far back as the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s there were North Peckham Boys, Yellow Brick Massive, Peckham Grove Boys, Outlaws and Acorn Crew all from the estates within SE15 and Peckham.
As is common in many long established gang areas of London new generations periodically replace older generations and with it often come new gang names. The Peckham Boys are the most infamous gang in Southwark and have been mentioned numerous times by the media since the death of Damilola Taylor. Peckham Boys was the main name of the gang for SE15 since the early to mid 1990s. The gang was known to have a number of age based factions such as the Peckham Kids, Younger Younger Peckham Boys, Young Peckham Boys and just Peckham Boys. The gang was spread around Peckham more notably on the Gloucester Grove, North Peckham, Goldsmiths and Penthouse Estates.
A number of cliques within the Peckham Boys were and still are headed by a dozen older well established members. Gangs spread from Peckham to include other areas such as Walworth Road Browning and Heygate Estates, home of Peckham Boys infamous allies the mainly Nigerian Firehouse Crew. More recently the use of Peckham Boys and Young Peckham Boys etc has become more redundant as the gang culture and age demographic has shifted into a new generation and the gang is becoming more commonly referred to as the Black Gang with numerous cliques such as SN1 (Spare No-1), SI (Shoot Instantly), DFA (Dont Fuck Around) etc... Peckham & Peckham Boys
In 1987 the North Peckham Taskforce was targeted, earmarked by Margaret Thatcher for regeneration. The move came after concerns of crime, robbery and youth gangs. After £1million investment problems were supposed to be solved. Then nearly 13 years later there was a big regeneration project again in North Peckham.
The North Peckham estate in the last decade was revamped from run down high rise flats and maisonettes and replaced with 2,000 new homes, a sports and leisure centre and an award winning library at a cost of £290 million. Despite this cost and physical rebuilding the gangs and violence still remain.
Whilst much gang violence is perpetrated amongst and between gang members a number of innocents have been caught up with two of the most well known incidents attributed to the Peckham Boys being that of Damilola Taylor and Michael Dosunmu.
In 2000 the Peckham Boys weren’t anything knew, to the residents of south London they had been staple in the community for over a decade although unbeknown to those outside of London. A series of events relating to the Peckham Boys became more reported in the media and by the end of 2000 the whole of Britain knew of the Peckham Boys.
In the summer of 2000 an 18 year old girl was shot outside a nightclub on the frontline whilst an African restaurant used by older Peckham Boys was raided by police who recovered a .357 handgun, stun gun, CS gas and cannabis. A few weeks later a Young Peckham Boy, aged 12, appeared in court after being found in possession of heroin, crack and £400. A gun battle outside Chicago’s nightclub on the frontline sees eight people wounded. Then in November, just 9 days before the murder of Damilola Taylor, 17 year old Shola Agora of Sceaux Gardens was stabbed and died at Kings College Hospital.
In late 2000, Damilola Taylor, 10, bled to death in a stairwell on the North Peckham Estate, after being stabbed in the leg on his way home from an after school club. The accused in the pro-longed cases were he infamous Preddie Brothers often linked by the media to the Peckham Boys gang although were seen to part of a lesser gang the young Untouchables. The Preddie brothers were responsible for a reign of terror in the Peckham community including a sexual attack on a 12 year old girl prior to Damilola’s death. It wasn’t until 6 years later when they were found guilty and convicted of manslaughter.
In a more recent similarly sad tale (Feb 07) another innocent Michael Dosunmu, 15, was shot dead when gun-men burst into his bedroom on Diamond Street Peckham. Police forged links with the murder three days earlier of 21 year old Javarie Crighton on nearby Southampton Way. The church going teenager however had not been the intended target
Peckham Boys war with Ghetto Boys
Ghetto Boys (a New Cross gang) told journalist Donal MacIntyre: "If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen (motions slitting throat)". MacIntyre tried to put words into people's mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm (the nickname for Peckham), and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It's been going on since the 70s, handed down from generation to generation.
Ghetto and Peckham had never got on, even local football between Peckham and Lewisham teams would be highly charged. Cultural differences between the African contingence of Peckham (situated in the main gang areas of North Peckham) and Caribbean contingence of Deptford, New Cross and Brockley in the past fuelled some of the conflicts.
In 2004 former gang member Eric Akinniranye was chased along Camberwell High Street and gunned down. He had recently been released on temporary licence from prison where he was serving 10 years for drugs and firearms offences. Two gunmen in a Mercedes rammed him from a motorcycle before chasing him bringing him down with a number of shots. The murder took place in broad daylight in full view of two buses and a crowded street of onlookers.
In a more humorous tale in 2004 Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys clashed outside the Urban Music Awards at the Barbican where shots were exchanged when a stray went toward innocent by-stander Helen Kelly. Bizarrely the underwire of her bra deflected the bullet away from her chest and into her right breast. There were 18 shots fired as people left the awards ceremony; Linton Ambursley from Lewisham was jailed for 12 years after admitting wounding with intent.
In September 2006 Jason Gayle-Bent, whose younger brother had been a former Ghetto Boy, was stabbed to death by a mob of Peckham Boys. The murder was reportedly sparked by a row at a party when rival Peckham and Ghetto Boys clashed at a party accusing one another of showing disrespect. Things turned nasty as one man was bottled. Just 24 hours later up to 40 gang members from Peckham armed with knives and a gas gun rode into the Ghetto Estate in New Cross on bikes where Jason was stabbed just yards from his home in Ludwick Mews. The following day shot rang out at a basketball court in Peckham in retaliation. Two of those at the court that day had their home in Peckham raided where police seized a Walther PKK pistol, Mac10, ammunition and class A drugs.
In late 2007 it was another innocent by-stander caught up in a what was a believed gun fight between rival Peckham and Ghetto gang members, although others have suggested intra rather than inter gang violence in the case. Polish nurse Magda Pniewska, 26, was hit in the head by a stray bullet as two teenage gunmen fired at one another in New Cross. “A guy came down the stairs with a bandana covering his face but you could see his eyes change like he thought he was being set up. He pulled out a gun and fired two or three shots at the car. A guy in the car shot back using the bonnet for cover”.
The war of Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys has a long history and rooted within it there have been a number of losses. The younger generation who are not as familiar with the history have in some ways fixed but also disrespected this history. It can be seen as good that Pecknarm and Wooly Road youngers are now allied with New Cross and Deptford so the beef can end and lives can be spared. But, the younger alliance is very disrespectful of the past.
Other Incidents
In 2001 a young man named Marcus Hall and his friends and other members of the Peckham Boys travelled to Luton to a So Solid Crew event at Atmospheres Nightclub. The Peckham Boys were refused entry to the club although some of them managed to get in. The event ended at 2am. As people were leaving the area became blocked with cars and there were several confrontations between various groups. It was in Chapel Street that Peckham Boys became involved in a fight with another group, all those involved were armed with weapons, including Hall who had been carrying a baseball bat. During the confrontation Hall sustained serious injuries and died.
A Peckham Boy was stabbed to death outside a McDonalds drive through in Malt Street, off the Old Kent Road, at around 10pm on 10th September 2003. A murder investigation was set up although police received little response and the CCTV images were too poor to see the suspects. However, after intensive specialist review of the CCTV it appeared the victim was touched on his shoulder by one of his attackers. DNA taken from the victims jumper where he had been touched led police to the main suspect.
A Peckham Boy gang boss was jailed for life in late 2007 after being found in possession of a huge arsenal of guns. Marlon Grandison, 25, was convicted of possessing guns including Mac10s and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
In October 2008 following the inquest of the murdered teen Philip Poru from Peckham it was concluded that he had been murdered by members of a gang known as the Woolwich Somalians. However, the student was seen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and not gang involved. The murder followed tension between the Woolwcih Somalians and the predominantly Nigerian gang T-Block (Thamesmead). It is believed there are allied links between T-Block and the Peckham Boys as both gangs have a large number of Nigerian members, on Poru’s response to have been from Peckham whilst in Woolwich territory it is believed his shooters assumed him to be there on behalf of T-Block who weeks previously had seriously injured 2 Woolwcih gang members in a shooting. To prevent any risk real or perceived Poru was shot dead.
Late 2008, police arrested seven suspected Peckham Boy members described as major and significant players connected with hundreds of violent robberies across London. The members targeted were believed to have been targeting gaming machines and betting shops raking in over £150,000 from crimes in 17 different London Boroughs.
Other Gangs in Southwark
Peckham Boys have for a long time and always will be the most infamous and largest gang in Southwark borough. Although, a hotbed of gang activity and cliques also exist along Walworth Road, home of the Wooly Road Boys, Firehouse Crew, Out to Ball Grey Gang etc based around Walworth Road itself and the Browning and Aylesbury and Heygate Estate. The Walworth Road area and Peckham have had a loose alliance for generations.
Two lesser known gangs London-wide, although both associated with serious crime and drugs, are C-Block (Crawford Estate close to Lambeth and more associated with Brixton gangs and who identify with Red/Blood) and Brooklyn (Old Kent Road area and SE1 gang who identify with dark grey).
Peckham & Peckham Boys
In 1987 the North Peckham Taskforce was targeted, earmarked by Margaret Thatcher for regeneration. The move came after concerns of crime, robbery and youth gangs. After £1million investment problems were supposed to be solved. Then nearly 13 years later there was a big regeneration project again in North Peckham.
The North Peckham estate in the last decade was revamped from run down high rise flats and maisonettes and replaced with 2,000 new homes, a sports and leisure centre and an award winning library at a cost of £290 million. Despite this cost and physical rebuilding the gangs and violence still remain.
Whilst much gang violence is perpetrated amongst and between gang members a number of innocents have been caught up with two of the most well known incidents attributed to the Peckham Boys being that of Damilola Taylor and Michael Dosunmu.
In 2000 the Peckham Boys weren’t anything knew, to the residents of south London they had been staple in the community for over a decade although unbeknown to those outside of London. A series of events relating to the Peckham Boys became more reported in the media and by the end of 2000 the whole of Britain knew of the Peckham Boys.
In the summer of 2000 an 18 year old girl was shot outside a nightclub on the frontline whilst an African restaurant used by older Peckham Boys was raided by police who recovered a .357 handgun, stun gun, CS gas and cannabis. A few weeks later a Young Peckham Boy, aged 12, appeared in court after being found in possession of heroin, crack and £400. A gun battle outside Chicago’s nightclub on the frontline sees eight people wounded. Then in November, just 9 days before the murder of Damilola Taylor, 17 year old Shola Agora of Sceaux Gardens was stabbed and died at Kings College Hospital.
In late 2000, Damilola Taylor, 10, bled to death in a stairwell on the North Peckham Estate, after being stabbed in the leg on his way home from an after school club. The accused in the pro-longed cases were he infamous Preddie Brothers often linked by the media to the Peckham Boys gang although were seen to part of a lesser gang the young Untouchables. The Preddie brothers were responsible for a reign of terror in the Peckham community including a sexual attack on a 12 year old girl prior to Damilola’s death. It wasn’t until 6 years later when they were found guilty and convicted of manslaughter.
In a more recent similarly sad tale (Feb 07) another innocent Michael Dosunmu, 15, was shot dead when gun-men burst into his bedroom on Diamond Street Peckham. Police forged links with the murder three days earlier of 21 year old Javarie Crighton on nearby Southampton Way. The church going teenager however had not been the intended target
Peckham Boys war with Ghetto Boys
Ghetto Boys (a New Cross gang) told journalist Donal MacIntyre: "If any of those Peckham Boys come over to New Cross, this will happen (motions slitting throat)". MacIntyre tried to put words into people's mouths by suggesting that the Pecknarm (the nickname for Peckham), and Ghetto war is about drugs. But they informed him that this beef is inherited, not drugs or turf related. Never has been, never will be. It's been going on since the 70s, handed down from generation to generation.
Ghetto and Peckham had never got on, even local football between Peckham and Lewisham teams would be highly charged. Cultural differences between the African contingence of Peckham (situated in the main gang areas of North Peckham) and Caribbean contingence of Deptford, New Cross and Brockley in the past fuelled some of the conflicts.
In 2004 former gang member Eric Akinniranye was chased along Camberwell High Street and gunned down. He had recently been released on temporary licence from prison where he was serving 10 years for drugs and firearms offences. Two gunmen in a Mercedes rammed him from a motorcycle before chasing him bringing him down with a number of shots. The murder took place in broad daylight in full view of two buses and a crowded street of onlookers.
In a more humorous tale in 2004 Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys clashed outside the Urban Music Awards at the Barbican where shots were exchanged when a stray went toward innocent by-stander Helen Kelly. Bizarrely the underwire of her bra deflected the bullet away from her chest and into her right breast. There were 18 shots fired as people left the awards ceremony; Linton Ambursley from Lewisham was jailed for 12 years after admitting wounding with intent.
In September 2006 Jason Gayle-Bent, whose younger brother had been a former Ghetto Boy, was stabbed to death by a mob of Peckham Boys. The murder was reportedly sparked by a row at a party when rival Peckham and Ghetto Boys clashed at a party accusing one another of showing disrespect. Things turned nasty as one man was bottled. Just 24 hours later up to 40 gang members from Peckham armed with knives and a gas gun rode into the Ghetto Estate in New Cross on bikes where Jason was stabbed just yards from his home in Ludwick Mews. The following day shot rang out at a basketball court in Peckham in retaliation. Two of those at the court that day had their home in Peckham raided where police seized a Walther PKK pistol, Mac10, ammunition and class A drugs.
In late 2007 it was another innocent by-stander caught up in a what was a believed gun fight between rival Peckham and Ghetto gang members, although others have suggested intra rather than inter gang violence in the case. Polish nurse Magda Pniewska, 26, was hit in the head by a stray bullet as two teenage gunmen fired at one another in New Cross. “A guy came down the stairs with a bandana covering his face but you could see his eyes change like he thought he was being set up. He pulled out a gun and fired two or three shots at the car. A guy in the car shot back using the bonnet for cover”.
The war of Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys has a long history and rooted within it there have been a number of losses. The younger generation who are not as familiar with the history have in some ways fixed but also disrespected this history. It can be seen as good that Pecknarm and Wooly Road youngers are now allied with New Cross and Deptford so the beef can end and lives can be spared. But, the younger alliance is very disrespectful of the past.
Other Incidents
In 2001 a young man named Marcus Hall and his friends and other members of the Peckham Boys travelled to Luton to a So Solid Crew event at Atmospheres Nightclub. The Peckham Boys were refused entry to the club although some of them managed to get in. The event ended at 2am. As people were leaving the area became blocked with cars and there were several confrontations between various groups. It was in Chapel Street that Peckham Boys became involved in a fight with another group, all those involved were armed with weapons, including Hall who had been carrying a baseball bat. During the confrontation Hall sustained serious injuries and died.
A Peckham Boy was stabbed to death outside a McDonalds drive through in Malt Street, off the Old Kent Road, at around 10pm on 10th September 2003. A murder investigation was set up although police received little response and the CCTV images were too poor to see the suspects. However, after intensive specialist review of the CCTV it appeared the victim was touched on his shoulder by one of his attackers. DNA taken from the victims jumper where he had been touched led police to the main suspect.
A Peckham Boy gang boss was jailed for life in late 2007 after being found in possession of a huge arsenal of guns. Marlon Grandison, 25, was convicted of possessing guns including Mac10s and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
In October 2008 following the inquest of the murdered teen Philip Poru from Peckham it was concluded that he had been murdered by members of a gang known as the Woolwich Somalians. However, the student was seen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and not gang involved. The murder followed tension between the Woolwcih Somalians and the predominantly Nigerian gang T-Block (Thamesmead). It is believed there are allied links between T-Block and the Peckham Boys as both gangs have a large number of Nigerian members, on Poru’s response to have been from Peckham whilst in Woolwich territory it is believed his shooters assumed him to be there on behalf of T-Block who weeks previously had seriously injured 2 Woolwcih gang members in a shooting. To prevent any risk real or perceived Poru was shot dead.
Late 2008, police arrested seven suspected Peckham Boy members described as major and significant players connected with hundreds of violent robberies across London. The members targeted were believed to have been targeting gaming machines and betting shops raking in over £150,000 from crimes in 17 different London Boroughs.
Other Gangs in Southwark
Peckham Boys have for a long time and always will be the most infamous and largest gang in Southwark borough. Although, a hotbed of gang activity and cliques also exist along Walworth Road, home of the Wooly Road Boys, Firehouse Crew, Out to Ball Grey Gang etc based around Walworth Road itself and the Browning and Aylesbury and Heygate Estate. The Walworth Road area and Peckham have had a loose alliance for generations.
Two lesser known gangs London-wide, although both associated with serious crime and drugs, are C-Block (Crawford Estate close to Lambeth and more associated with Brixton gangs and who identify with Red/Blood) and Brooklyn (Old Kent Road area and SE1 gang who identify with dark grey).
http://gangsinlondon.piczo.com/southwark(peckhamarea)?cr=2&vsrc=search_yahoo&linkvar=000044
- Greaze
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 28
- Joined: April 28th, 2009, 7:10 pm
- What city do you live in now?: London
Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by thursday » October 11th, 2010, 5:05 pm
"...in 2004 Peckham Boys and Ghetto Boys clashed outside the Urban Music Awards at the Barbican where shots were exchanged when a stray went toward innocent by-stander Helen Kelly. Bizarrely the underwire of her bra deflected the bullet away from her chest and into her right breast. There were 18 shots fired as people left the awards ceremony; Linton Ambursley from Lewisham was jailed for 12 years after admitting wounding with intent
Linton Ambursley is one unsavoury character...I dont know the story as to why he did this or his motive or who else was involved tbh, I have asked him and he will not say, however I will say he has no remorse, probably the only thing he is sorry for is that he got caught...at least it seemed that way when I asked him.
I met Linton Ambursley in 2000, when I lived in Brockley, at his time he was involved in drug trafficking. His role was to procure potential 'mules' obviously he was being paid for this...and taking a cut out of the fee the mules were supposed to receive....I was under the impression that he and I were in a relationship. I was 17 when i met him, he was 23...I was vulnerable and naeive to say the least when i met this guy and i was also in a bad situation..it did not take long for him to convince me to smuggle cocaine for him from Jamaica....to cut a long story short I was arrested upon my return and i served a 12 year sentence in jail, i was released on parole after half. I know of other girls who smuggled drugs for him, and I can tell you how angry he was when i was caught because in his words 'his girls always got through'...Through his associates Linton was involved with the customs officer Richard Riley
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4103648.stm
He is BAD news....he has never let it go the fact I got arrested with the drugs (even though he got away scott free) which BTW were worth an estimated street value of 1.8 million GBpounds and more recently after he had been imprisoned for almost 5 years for shooting Ms. Kelly he decided to contact my little sister who was 18 at the time (he being 32) My sister didnt tell anyone and via letters he seduced her, and made her believe they were going to be a couple upon his release and encouraged her to take him out on his town visits from prison, he then dumped and humiliated her and informed me (and others) that he had done it "to get back at me" meanwhile as his year long pursual of my sister was taking place he had another female (whom by all accounts he has married whilst serving his prison sentence) and impregnated her on his town visits, she has recently given birth....
Linton Ambursley has social networking sites where his 'friends' are young girls under the age of 20 who I think should be aware of what he really is....a lowlife, useing, drug dealing, attempted murdering scum....
moving on....
"...At night in the dark alleys of the estate mothers and young children dare not venture out. Ryan Lee, a builder who has been demolishing blocks of the 1960s flats, also makes sure he is not in the area at night. He said: "It is quite terrifying round here. I came back after 6pm to pick something up one night. Never again. There are kids hanging around and you can see these cars drawn up, Mercedes and BMWs and kids run up to them to buy heroin. It is like bees round honey. When we demolished this block we found around 20,000 hypodermic needles."
Well I have been living on North Peckham Estate for a few years...I have not seen Heroin..although i do believe that building they are referring to was a derelict block and full of squatters...so stands to reason...
I cannot say I have been afraid after dark to go out...Actually I loved Peckham...I have left because of a broken heart...I got in with a crowd when I first moved there, many of my neighbours said bad news but they were cool with me, and I met a guy from them endz...his friends and cousins were around my house 24/7 with their girlfriends...I even went away for 2 weeks and left them with the key and when I got back there were no problems, and nothing was stolen, well not by any of the mans...their girls were teefs of garms n shoes alright..but the mans were down with me....But the guy I was with we split and he gave me some problems but mostly was heartbreak why I left Pecks..I didnt think of it as a bad place...There are good people and bad people wherever you go...
One night a wierdo got off the bus when I did and followed me off frontline, I couldnt shake him off, I walked all around North Peckham, twice, and he would not go, he started to talk to me and I was scared because I didnt know his face and I knew he was a stranger around there....I wanted to go home but I didnt want to go to my block so he would see which bit I lived...I was about to start the third lap of the estate, when i seen some mans I knew by sight around and in a car...i approached them and whispered this guy was following me and asked if they would help...they chased him off the estate and took me home...I was not scared of no one on that estate....
but I do see the bad things....I think the children grow up too soon, there is no inbetween stages for them in my opinion...my older kids have all their old Peckham school friends on facebook and it breaks my heart to see these young people they have left behind in Peckham talking like they are grown..I mean 11, 12 year olds...they have pics on their pages and boys are calling them sexy and buff...and I can just see a bleak road there...I think Peckham has problems, severe problems with mans and girls in their teens being sexually active, promiscuous...and the repercussions this brings....i will explain if anyone wants...but I mean this is fact Ok I have seen this straight up...and its bad.
Apart from that these kids on facebook all have put these nicknames in thier real names on their profiles...my son says its so do with being associated to PYG.
So you know I have more to say on this but I dont know who wants to know or read?
But i miss Peckham because I loved it there...but at the same time I know now I have moved far out of the city my children will have a better chance and quality of life...it saddens me to say but it is true....where we live now they can be children...and grow up without getting into that lifestyle of gangs....
I just saw on the internet that another shooting took place outside where i lived last month....and that makes about 3 in as many years, also whist I lived there twice my road was blocked off due to stabbings, and the other month at Kelly Avenue, central venture there was a shooting incident with teenagers...there was an helicopter and bare police...teenagers you know...i just find it really fucked up...I dont know why it has to be this way....my heart feels heavy you know?
Linton Ambursley is one unsavoury character...I dont know the story as to why he did this or his motive or who else was involved tbh, I have asked him and he will not say, however I will say he has no remorse, probably the only thing he is sorry for is that he got caught...at least it seemed that way when I asked him.
I met Linton Ambursley in 2000, when I lived in Brockley, at his time he was involved in drug trafficking. His role was to procure potential 'mules' obviously he was being paid for this...and taking a cut out of the fee the mules were supposed to receive....I was under the impression that he and I were in a relationship. I was 17 when i met him, he was 23...I was vulnerable and naeive to say the least when i met this guy and i was also in a bad situation..it did not take long for him to convince me to smuggle cocaine for him from Jamaica....to cut a long story short I was arrested upon my return and i served a 12 year sentence in jail, i was released on parole after half. I know of other girls who smuggled drugs for him, and I can tell you how angry he was when i was caught because in his words 'his girls always got through'...Through his associates Linton was involved with the customs officer Richard Riley
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4103648.stm
He is BAD news....he has never let it go the fact I got arrested with the drugs (even though he got away scott free) which BTW were worth an estimated street value of 1.8 million GBpounds and more recently after he had been imprisoned for almost 5 years for shooting Ms. Kelly he decided to contact my little sister who was 18 at the time (he being 32) My sister didnt tell anyone and via letters he seduced her, and made her believe they were going to be a couple upon his release and encouraged her to take him out on his town visits from prison, he then dumped and humiliated her and informed me (and others) that he had done it "to get back at me" meanwhile as his year long pursual of my sister was taking place he had another female (whom by all accounts he has married whilst serving his prison sentence) and impregnated her on his town visits, she has recently given birth....
Linton Ambursley has social networking sites where his 'friends' are young girls under the age of 20 who I think should be aware of what he really is....a lowlife, useing, drug dealing, attempted murdering scum....
moving on....
"...At night in the dark alleys of the estate mothers and young children dare not venture out. Ryan Lee, a builder who has been demolishing blocks of the 1960s flats, also makes sure he is not in the area at night. He said: "It is quite terrifying round here. I came back after 6pm to pick something up one night. Never again. There are kids hanging around and you can see these cars drawn up, Mercedes and BMWs and kids run up to them to buy heroin. It is like bees round honey. When we demolished this block we found around 20,000 hypodermic needles."
Well I have been living on North Peckham Estate for a few years...I have not seen Heroin..although i do believe that building they are referring to was a derelict block and full of squatters...so stands to reason...
I cannot say I have been afraid after dark to go out...Actually I loved Peckham...I have left because of a broken heart...I got in with a crowd when I first moved there, many of my neighbours said bad news but they were cool with me, and I met a guy from them endz...his friends and cousins were around my house 24/7 with their girlfriends...I even went away for 2 weeks and left them with the key and when I got back there were no problems, and nothing was stolen, well not by any of the mans...their girls were teefs of garms n shoes alright..but the mans were down with me....But the guy I was with we split and he gave me some problems but mostly was heartbreak why I left Pecks..I didnt think of it as a bad place...There are good people and bad people wherever you go...
One night a wierdo got off the bus when I did and followed me off frontline, I couldnt shake him off, I walked all around North Peckham, twice, and he would not go, he started to talk to me and I was scared because I didnt know his face and I knew he was a stranger around there....I wanted to go home but I didnt want to go to my block so he would see which bit I lived...I was about to start the third lap of the estate, when i seen some mans I knew by sight around and in a car...i approached them and whispered this guy was following me and asked if they would help...they chased him off the estate and took me home...I was not scared of no one on that estate....
but I do see the bad things....I think the children grow up too soon, there is no inbetween stages for them in my opinion...my older kids have all their old Peckham school friends on facebook and it breaks my heart to see these young people they have left behind in Peckham talking like they are grown..I mean 11, 12 year olds...they have pics on their pages and boys are calling them sexy and buff...and I can just see a bleak road there...I think Peckham has problems, severe problems with mans and girls in their teens being sexually active, promiscuous...and the repercussions this brings....i will explain if anyone wants...but I mean this is fact Ok I have seen this straight up...and its bad.
Apart from that these kids on facebook all have put these nicknames in thier real names on their profiles...my son says its so do with being associated to PYG.
So you know I have more to say on this but I dont know who wants to know or read?
But i miss Peckham because I loved it there...but at the same time I know now I have moved far out of the city my children will have a better chance and quality of life...it saddens me to say but it is true....where we live now they can be children...and grow up without getting into that lifestyle of gangs....
I just saw on the internet that another shooting took place outside where i lived last month....and that makes about 3 in as many years, also whist I lived there twice my road was blocked off due to stabbings, and the other month at Kelly Avenue, central venture there was a shooting incident with teenagers...there was an helicopter and bare police...teenagers you know...i just find it really fucked up...I dont know why it has to be this way....my heart feels heavy you know?
- thursday
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- If in the United States: West Virginia
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Re: Peckham Boys Gang (South London)
by karim » October 22nd, 2012, 7:24 am
Hi Thursday !
I've read your whole story on your blog (with Linton "Boogie" Ambursley).
I'd like to get in contact with you in order to write about London gangs you obviously experienced first hand. So I'm trying here...
I've read your whole story on your blog (with Linton "Boogie" Ambursley).
I'd like to get in contact with you in order to write about London gangs you obviously experienced first hand. So I'm trying here...
- karim
- Straw Weight
- Posts: 56
- Joined: July 18th, 2006, 7:14 am
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