The intense feud between rival teenage gangs in Stockwell and Brixton, south London, has claimed several lives
Police examining the scene after the shooting that left Thusha Kamaleswaran paralysed. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
In the grainy CCTV footage, a little girl is seen playing happily in the aisle of her uncle's corner shop. As she skips towards the doorway, two young men rush in and bundle past her, leaving the child in the direct line of fire of a gunman aiming at them.
In the next few seconds, the life of five-year-old Thushara Kamaleswaran, known as Thusha, collided with an escalating feud between two south London street gangs with tragic and lifelong consequences.
As the intended victim cowered behind a drinks stand and the gunman rode off on a bike, Thusha was left lying motionless on the floor. She had been hit in the chest by a bullet that hit her spine and then passed out of her back.
She had two heart attacks and medics were forced to carry out emergency surgery at the scene. At one point, she was pronounced clinically dead before doctors managed to revive her at nearby King's College hospital.
Thusha, now six, needs round-the-clock care and is being treated at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire. She will be paralysed for the rest of her life.
The story of the violent feud that led to the shooting of Thusha and another bystander, 35-year-old Roshan Selvakumar, in March last year is one of shifting rivalries, petty disputes and increasing violence among the teenage gangs that operate in the streets and estates between Brixton and Stockwell in south London.
In the past few months, the intensity and pace of the violence has grown. It is the activities of gangs such as the Brixton-based Gas – a name that stands variously for Guns and Shanks (knives), Grind and Stack, and Grip and Shoot – that led to the creation in January of the Metropolitan police's 1,000-strong Trident gang taskforce.
Over 20 months, members of this gang have killed at least three people, all teenagers aged 15 to 17, and is thought to be behind up to 80% of crimes resulting in death or serious injury in Brixton.
Latest outbreak
The latest outbreak of violence took place at the start of March, when Kwame Ofosu-Asare, an A-level student from east London, was stabbed and killed. In the five days before his death there had been seven stabbings, all linked to Gas and its rivals.
The specific cause of the dispute that left Thusha paralysed may never be known. It was suggested in court that Kazeem Kolawole, 19, Anthony McCalla, 19, and Nathaniel Grant, 21, set out "on a mission into rival territory" after an argument over territory. Others have said it was down to a row over drugs.
But through a series of interviews with former and current gang members and specialist police officers, it is clear the attack was not isolated: just the latest in an upward spiral of violence involving Gas and its intensifying rivalry with a neighbouring Stockwell gang, ABM – All 'Bout Money.
The Met's new taskforce has adopted a policy of not talking about specific gangs because officers believe it could glamorise them in the eyes of followers, but for those who have grown up in a subculture in which the gang is "family", the tales of the slights, feuds and violence have evolved into street lore.
Gas emerged in 2007 via a merger of "youngers" – junior members – from the OC gang (One Chance or Organised Criminals) based around Myatt's Fields, between Camberwell and Brixton, and the PDC gang (Peel Dem Crew) from nearby Angell Town.
Kolawole, McCalla and Grant initially belonged to OC but like many others involved in Brixton's teenage gangs, they were drawn to Gas as played a more significant and violent role in drug-dealing and street crime.
One former member who spoke to the Guardian said it was this new "unified Brixton gang" that provoked a backlash from rival groups in south London and set in chain the violent rivalry.
The anonymous 19-year-old, who joined his first gang when he was 13, said it was in July 2010 that the once amicable relations between Gas and ABM soured into violence. The opening salvo came when 15-year-old Zac Olumegbon – known as Lil Zac – was chased down and stabbed to death outside his school by members of Gas. In court, the jury was told Olumegbon was linked to the TN1 (Trust No One) gang from Tulse Hill.
What was not clear to the authorities at the time was that members of TN1 had forged an alliance with ABM, and that Zac's death would plunge the gangs into a cycle of violence that still rages.
"When Lil Zac died, because he was related to ABM they joined up with Tulse Hill and that's when ABM started to beef Brixton as well," said the 19-year-old.
The territories controlled by the Gas gang and ABM are separated by Brixton Road, a busy street running from the Oval tube station in the north to Brixton in the south. Commuters may be oblivious to its significance but for teenagers caught up in London's gang violence – some just 12 or 13 – the road marks a definite, and potentially deadly, divide.
The three young men responsible for the attack on Thusha knew the importance of the divide. McCalla, known as Mad Antz, was seen as an "older" – a senior gang member – and had openly boasted he was a member as far back as 2007, telling a probation officer at one point that he was the leader of "Tiny OC". He even has a "One Chance" tattoo on his arm.
Petty crime
The court heard that pictures on the internet show him making gun and OC hand gestures and he said he had made a living from petty crime, particularly stealing from other cannabis dealers.
McCalla, who told the court his brother had been shot in gang violence, said he had been trying to turn his back on gang life after a six-month prison term for theft in 2010.
Kolawole was the newest member of the Gas gang, but he bragged in BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messages about how he was planning to "fuck up a couple Pagans" (members of rival gangs) and later how he was going to get his "swammies" (guns).
But it was perhaps Grant who was the most senior member. The 21-year-old, who fired the shots that hit Thusha and Selvakumar, was seen by many younger gang members as "something of a boss", the court heard. He had previously been charged with murder over the shooting of 18-year-old Ryan Bravo in 2008. He denied the charge and was acquitted half-way through his trial. His seniority may explain why this group were able to use a firearm, rather than the household knives normally associated with gangs.
Kolawole, McCalla and Grant prepared for their attack in the warren of streets and walkways around Myatt's Fields, east of Brixton Road, testing the gun on ground near Foxley Square.
The area is run down, with residents complaining about a lack of investment and police who only drive by in cars rather than patrol on foot.
One woman, who works in a shop behind Myatt's Fields, said people were aware of what went on but were too afraid to step in.
"Everyone knows what is going on but they won't talk about it, because it is these kids that are running this area and if they find out who has talked it gets very difficult: you get burgled and your family gets attacked," said the woman, who did not want her name to be used.
One Gas member who knows this area well explained how he was "recruited" to the gang aged 12 after being noticed by older members following a series of fights at school. "People think people join gangs for fun but what they don't know is that if you show weakness you can get bullied."
He said after the first year at secondary school he felt he had two choices: either join a gang or become a victim: "Who wants to be a victim? If you hear about gang offers you hear about girls, women, reputation. And then you hear 'victim', 'bullying', getting attacked. You pick gangs, anyone would."
The 21-year-old, who says he is now trying to escape the gang life, says he underwent an initiation: "You get recruited and then you give blood. You cut your hand and you make your blood drip on the bandana to show you're loyal." He said the initiation also involved lessons on how and where to stab someone to inflict a specific sort of injury.
Tit-for-tat dispute
Among the bravado and posturing of London's teenage street gangs, it is impossible to verify these claims, but the evidence in the recent trial supports what Gas members told the Guardian. The jury heard Thusha was shot in a "violent tit-for-tat dispute with the ABM gang ... affiliated to the TN1 gang from further south" and that "2009 to 2011 was a particularly violent period, with the degree of violence escalating significantly".
The escalation continued again two months after Thusha was shot, when Temidayo Ogunneye, 15, was stabbed to death by a member of Gas. Temidayo had been robbed by the gang earlier in the day near Myatt's Fields and returned later with friends to retrieve his BlackBerry phone.
Nathan McLeod, 16, taunted him and a fight broke out. When McLeod produced a knife, Ogunneye ran, but slipped on some wet grass, where McLeod pinned him down, stabbing him once in the chest. Two weeks ago, McLeod was jailed for a minimum of 14 years.
For Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, from the Met's homicide team in south London, too often the result of this spontaneous and unpredictable violence is a young boy lying on a mortuary slab. "There is a pressure-cooker atmosphere and the tensions seem to be accentuated by the use of the internet," he said.
"If you have a gripe with someone it is played out on Facebook or YouTube, and through your BBM messages. It's not like they can walk away and try to avoid the people you don't want to see – it is all around you. It is all about face, about posturing, about trying to be a man, and once it has started it is hard to de-escalate it."
McFarlane has successfully put several members of Gas behind bars and his investigation into Zac Olumegbon's murder in July 2010 uncovered a chilling level of premeditation and planning by his assailants. The five killers, all aged between 16 and 18, had met up the night before to plan the attack. They arrived the following day at Park Campus school in West Norwood, south London, in a stolen car, carrying at least two knives. Four of them chased Zac down, in a pursuit filmed on CCTV until they headed down an alley, and overcame him in the back garden of a house, stabbing him repeatedly, before fleeing. The five were jailed for the killing last December.
Stop and search
As the police step up efforts to stem the violence – putting a section 60 stop-and-search zone around the whole of Lambeth in south London during the outbreak of violence this month – the gangs appear to be refining their tactics.
Few now carry their weapons as they move around their areas. Instead they stash them in makeshift stores in strategic locations; electric storage boxes, utility boxes, bushes and undergrowth to access when they are needed.
"What we are seeing is young men who have no respect for life, their lives or the lives of others," said McFarlane.
Back on the streets around Myatt's Fields and Brixton last week there was little sign of the violence abating.
Older members of Gas say that although many of their generation are now either in prison, dead or are growing tired of the bloodshed, "Gas gang youngers" are already beginning to peel away, forming a new group known as Villa Road, based further south along Brixton Road.
But as Kolawole, McCalla and Grant begin what are likely to be long prison terms, it will offer no comfort for Thusha and her parents, who are left to face the years ahead coping with her profound disability.
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