Boy shot dead in "tit-for-tat reprisals"

Teenage gangs plagued a Sheffield suburb where a 16-year-old boy was shot dead last night with months of "tit-for-tat reprisals", according to a community newsletter.

Robert Smith, editor of the Burngreave Messenger, wrote that tensions had been escalating all day and shots which "sounded like poppers" were heard by residents two hours before the killing.

He said that youths in the area had to "barricade" themselves inside houses to escape teenagers in a rival gang who were firing shots.

Mr Smith claimed witnesses reported seeing a "red beam laser light that shone from the dark" before shots were fired.

Mr Smith said: "Today in Burngreave we have reached a new level in an inner city internal warfare that is seeing young people firing guns as though playing a video amusement game with life.

"Killing the innocent and involving those never before involved in their issues or disputes, other than being associated with those they have the issue with.

"The perpetrators who have committed this act were not only reckless and life-destroying, but wild without thought, control or care. Like playing a video game they took an innocent life."

He said the teenager was a microphone MC whose death has left the community "shocked and very angry".

Mr Smith said: "His life was crudely taken for being in the wrong place in the wrong company and in that company that bullet could have been inside a number of young people.

"As an active member of this community I can only reflect the sadness I now feel for this young life that has been sadly and needlessly lost yet again to the gun crime.

"Now, undoubtedly an epidemic out of control, and unless we come out, stand up be counted, stand up and be parents, stand up and show we truly care, stand up show we know right from wrong, then this shame of children needlessly killing children will continue unabated."