However, the city of Oxford is no Utopia – far too many beggars and big issue merchants in the city centre- you could lose a small fortune in charitable acts.
Two summers ago, I stumbled into a crime scene; police officers stood sentry at a section of Cowley road and the local church were cordoned off to the public. It was quite obvious there was a manhunt on. It later transpired that the police were looking for the perpetrator of a brutal stabbing and murder, who rather aptly sought sanctuary in the church grounds.
The events which followed made the local newspapers, the TV and was the source of much gossip on the city’s bus route. It was just about the only serious violent incident that had caught my attention during my stay in Oxford.
When I returned to London last year I couldn’t help but notice the appearance of bouquets, which sporadically adorn the streets of North London. For some reason, I associated them with fatal road-side accidents. Somehow my time in idyllic Oxford had erased the memory of violence, stabbings and shootouts on the streets of London, but the flowers and the sub-machine gun shooting of 16 year old Agnes Sina-Inakoju, in April last year, reminded me of the violence which often permeates the capital.
I am not particularly taken aback by violence and aggression, but I am certainly affected at the age of some of the victims, the manner in which they are murdered and the fashion in which Londoners have accepted it as a part of life.
Today, five youths were convicted of another senseless crime; the March 2010 ‘Victoria’ station killing. Organised on Facebook between rival schoolchildren; it was reported at the time, that the victim (15 year old Sofyen Belamouadden) was confronted by some twenty armed youths and was set upon in plain sight of commuters in Victoria station.
The subsequent result of this terrible tragedy is two youths, Obi Nwokeh, 18, of Bermondsey and a 17-year-old were convicted of murder by unanimous jury verdicts. There were lesser charges for a further three participant in the tragic killing of the Morrocan school boy.
At the beginning of this year MP’s and the Metropolitan Police ran their campaign of ‘joint-enterprise’ in a bid to educate young people about the risks of playing a role in serious crime. And yet for all intents, it seems the judicial process cannot make good on the campaign’s scare tactics.
Rampaging youths, armed with swords and knives, in open view and committing murder, an innocent school girl machine-gunned in her local chip shop; and let’s not forget Temidayo Fuwad Ogunneye, the 15-year-old schoolboy stabbed to death last Wednesday.
Whats goin on?
Wake up London & pay attention!
‘Whats going on?’ by Marvin Gaye
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya
No comments:
Post a Comment