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dreamdancer

Gun culture sweeps through Sheffield

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don't you love guns...

***They chased him through the children's play area, shooting frantically at the fleeing figure. For almost a mile Jonathan Matondo ran through these Sheffield streets with four armed "hunters" on his heels. Just beyond the playground, the 16-year-old found himself cornered. Matondo was shot at the place where graffiti now say: "Peace. Love. Unity."

In the district of Burngreave, such well-meaning sentiments are buried beneath one of inner-city Britain's bloodiest gangland feuds. Matondo's murder 18 months ago intensified the spiral of retribution between gangs named after two of the city's postcodes. Five minutes from where he was shot, Spital Hill still marks the front line between the S3 crew of Pitsmoor and the S4s from Burngreave.

Police maintain that Sheffield is one of the UK's safest major cities, yet within this small knot of estates perched on a hill north of its gentrified centre a gang culture rules. Ten days ago a drive-by shooting left 1 dead and 3 injured. This month Sheffield crown court heard how an S3 gang member ordered a killing from his prison cell. The feud between the S3 and S4 gangs has led to 3 murders in 18 months. A police dossier chronicles at least 40 occasions on which the two gangs have opened fire on each other.

Few visitors here pass unnoticed. Former gang members told last week how carefully sited spotters record vehicle registrations. Details are relayed to other members to check whether new arrivals are undercover police.

Gang members reel off the particulars of police officers and which detectives they fear most. "When you get a certain individual here, you know something is going down. They'll know the nooks and crannies, who the people are." The police are equally aware. "We know who they are. We are waiting and watching," said Chief Superintendent Paul Broadbent.

Matondo's death 18 months ago served notice to Broadbent that the use of guns among teenagers that has plagued cities such as Manchester had arrived in South Yorkshire.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/19/gun-culture-sheffield-estates
stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

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Thank heavens for Britain's gun control laws, otherwise stuff like that might happen. Oh wait...

Try this: replace the word "gun" in the headline with "gang" and see how much better the headline fits the story.
Provoking a reaction isn't the same thing as saying something meaningful.
-Calvin

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Don't confuse gun culture with gang culture. If these idiots did't have guns they'd be stabbing each other.
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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Such a shame the parents of the kids in the playground weren't allowed to carry guns as it would have certainly made the situation better. Damn gun ban. I personally like to use the slide as a shield in a public gun battle, swings just aren't big enough. *sarcasm*

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May Contain Nut traces......

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Why are Americans obsesed by the UK gun ban?



as the anti-gunners here contend that violent crime wouldn't go up in the presence of a gun ban, and certainly gun crime would go down. The pro-gunners are carefully (sometimes too carefully aka cherry-picking) watching crime stats in the area and pointing to just these such events as indicators to what might happen in the presence of a gun ban here.
--
Rob

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don't you love guns...

***They chased him through the children's play area, shooting frantically at the fleeing figure. For almost a mile Jonathan Matondo ran through these Sheffield streets with four armed "hunters" on his heels.



How did the gun force those four gang punks to chase that poor kid for a mile in order to shoot him?

Is it because the gun just likes to kill, and having no legs of its own, it thereby has to possess the spirits of impressionable young men, and turn them into its own evil henchmen to assist in the fulfillment of its destiny?

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I just read a book by a Los Angeles cop,, he says, thanks to Rodney King, LA PD avoids certain racial areas as much as possible. Must be great for the honest folk who live there, you know ? Cops scared to come in there,, because of law - yers !!!

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They chased him through the children's play area, shooting frantically at the fleeing figure. For almost a mile Jonathan Matondo ran through these Sheffield streets with four armed "hunters" on his heels. Just beyond the playground, the 16-year-old found himself cornered. Matondo was shot at the place where graffiti now say: "Peace. Love. Unity."

In the district of Burngreave, such well-meaning sentiments are buried beneath one of inner-city Britain's bloodiest gangland feuds. Matondo's murder 18 months ago intensified the spiral of retribution between gangs named after two of the city's postcodes.



Shame this story didn't expound more on Matondo's possible role in earlier events in this 'spiral of retribution'. Odds are decent to likely that he got what he had coming. At least bystanders were hit during this mile long chase.

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I just read a book by a Los Angeles cop,, he says, thanks to Rodney King, LA PD avoids certain racial areas as much as possible. Must be great for the honest folk who live there, you know ? Cops scared to come in there,, because of law - yers !!!



did the book have very short words set in large type for easy reading?
stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

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