With the Liverpool shooting of 11 year old Rhys Jones (link) still fresh in people's minds, it was quite shocking to wake up this morning to the news that another boy (this time 15 years old) has been shot dead in Normanton. When Rhys Jones was shot, apart from the obvious fact that someone had killed a child and is something that I always hate hearing about, it was a story I followed because it happened in an area I'd - not grown up in - but wasn't far from my hometown and was a place I'd been to quite regularly with friends when I still lived on the Wirral.

This latest shooting has even more of an impact because it's literally on my doorstep. It's approx 4 miles away from my house, even closer to where Gary's parents live and not far from where our eldest boy is currently living.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of information so far on what's happened - apart from the park where the incident happened was closed off and, even with the use of the Police Helicopter and the dog units, by the time they arrived the person/people responsible had made their getaway.

BBC NEWS | England | Derbyshire | Boy, 15, dies in street shooting

I'd be very interested to hear what the ethnicity of the boy is, and indeed if he himself is part of one of these "gangs". If he is indeed part of a gang, I wont be shedding many tears. It's bad for the family, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but again, if he was in a gang he has been asking for it, really.

I'm a b*stard, I know.

His name has been released as Kadeem Blackwood - his family is Jamaican but he and his parents were born in Britain. Doesn't seem to be anything gang related so far, at least nothing mentioned saying it was thought to be. A 19 year old male has been arrested since the story first broke.

Update

What's going on? Too much TV? Too many video games? Immigrants bringing shonky customs? Yesterday afternoon about four blocks from where I am sitting ... AdelaideNow... Youths stabbed in brawl inside Adelaide city newsagency

Acknowledging the fact that this may come over as racist, I'm opting with your choice of "Immigrants bringing shonky customs?" At least, judging by the list of names supplied on one news site listing the names of teens/young adults killed by knives and guns in the UK this year... 3 out of, I think 50+ were white British. 90% of the people committing these crimes were recently arrived immigrants to the country and the majority of those killed were Asian or black. Is it that these particular people are targetted because of their culture or colour or just that the ones who killed them saw the opportunity and took it?

I haven't the opportunity for statistic gathering at the moment but a subjective picture of my patch is this;

- Holdups, car theft, home invasions, with whatever weapons they can get without too much hard work - without an ability to putting numbers on it, it's the regular daily activity of a local Aboriginal youth gang. Definitely not migrants! News services are shy about specifying ethnicity, but pixels can't hide some things.

- Shootings - biker gangs, and I think almost always "surgical" - they get their target and not bystanders.

- Knives and machetes - African and Asian youth gangs.

There are various one-offs such as domestic flare-ups of course.

Yes, bikers aside (for them it's business negotiation) I'd say there are cultural factors here. When I can I will look for numbers. If the numbers show significant trends, is it still racism? Or can we dismiss workers based on numbers, but not point fingers at ethnic groups?

Hence why I asked the "ethnicity card" - I think it's shonky customs but not brought over by immigrants; I believe it's more to do with immigrants (or those who believe they still don't fit into British society) attempting to find their own identity through watching TV - unfortunately if I were to go any further, it would be seen as this. There's been quite enough of that lately, and I'll wait until the Obama honeymoon period ends before I stop singing their praises and start doing what I do best again, moaning about things.

Without getting too far away from the original incident in the first post, a footnote to the stabbing here - which by the way we in the city could not fail to notice! - is at AdelaideNow... Knife bought just before killing. It leads towards answers to my initial questions.

Our Premier is inclined not to tolerate violent crime and has called the heads of the local Sudanese community and others together for a little chat. Good thing that he is making some effort to be directly involved rather than leaving it to the usual mechanisms - not all solutions are legalistic.