A nine-year-old girl is “fighting for her life” after being shot in Hackney, east London. Three adults were also hurt.
Wednesday at about 21:20 BST, shots were fired from outside the restaurant where the “innocent victim” was having dinner with her family on Kingsland High Street in Dalston. This was confirmed by Ch Supt James Conway of the Metropolitan Police.
Three men, ages 26, 37, and 42, who were sitting outside the restaurant were also shot. The gunshots are thought to have come from a stolen motorcycle.
The girls and the men, who are not thought to know each other, are still in the hospital. One of the men may have “life-changing” injuries.
Ch Supt James Conway said there were two crime scenes: one where the shooting took place and one at Colvestone Crescent, where the motorcycle was found.
His words were, “We don’t think the girl and the hurt men knew each other.”
“Like any other child, she was an innocent victim of gun crime that doesn’t care who it hurts.”
He said: “Events such as these are rarely spontaneous.”There is someone who knows who shot this little girl and now she is fighting for her life.
Ch Supt Conway said that police were “keeping an open mind” about the reason.
In the Evin restaurant this morning, there were broken glasses and chairs all over the floor, along with drinks glasses that were only half full.
The owner of the nearby Aso Rock Restaurant, Ayo Adesina, 40, said he was “stunned” by the shooting.
“At the time, I thought it was just a car, but I heard gunshots.”
“When I looked down the road, I saw a lot of people.”
“I got on an e-bike and went up there and saw a man on the floor who wasn’t moving.”
The killing was called “crazy” by Mr. Adesina.
“It’s a high street where, especially in the summertime, people sit outside – whoever did this is very reckless,” said the man.
“People are walking up and down that high street – I’ve been to that restaurant with my family.”
He also said that there were “almost certainly twenty-five or thirty police cars” and “about two hundred people crowded around.”
There were gunshots heard by Dave Evans while he was walking his dog. He told the BBC that it was “part of living in Hackney.”
“If I had arrived five minutes earlier, who knows what would have happened, it’s not good for the community.”
He said: “People were screaming in the cafe, there were a lot of people lying on the floor, clearly something very bad had happened.”A lot of different kinds of people live here, but things are tense right now. “People can feel it now.”
Further, Ch Supt Conway said, “We want to find other witnesses who were in the area at the time of the shooting.”Also, please let us know if you were in the Kingsland High Street area during the shooting and have information or video from a phone or other device.