I'm so furious! We had a good panel meeting on Tuesday, set our priorities, recruited new officers (for the panel, that is) and it's been a good week since. But the whole vibe seemed to fall apart on the weekend. It was bad enough having two youths run me over with their bikes on the pavement in front of the bus garage then get shirty giving me aggro about how I had just interfered with their passage along the pavement as I was walking to the gym Friday evening. Turning the corner I pointed them out to two policemen sitting in their car who mumbled something about calling it in. [Edit: I have assurances that this will be dealt with; enquiries have begun] Tonight, though, my corner shop at Estreham and Hambro Road was robbed at gunpoint by two men with a shotgun. MY corner shop was held up at gunpoint tonight! 40 yards from MY house! I am not happy and locally we've begun doing something about this (We'll be blogging on this later on specific prevention issues. Look for link here in the coming weeks).
After introducing myself to the Flying Squad there investigating the incident, I mentioned that there have been innumerable assaults on the poor fellow, property damage incidents and threats, all without result. But it seems like tonight's incident has capped it all off with a bit of inevitability that must certainly come from the perception that the shop is an easy mark.
The Flying Squad have CCTV images and other evidence (along with our contact details--we expect an update if/when there's a result). But it seems to me that if someone is nicked for callously running over pedestrians with a weapon like a bicycle on the pavement, they'll probably never have the opportunity to graduate to harder crimes with guns. But today I was told our PCSOs in Lambeth won't be given the powers to do anything about this. Good thing they call them the "Flying" Squad....
(Update: The Chair and the Crime Prevention Unit have been working with the corner shop owner who has installed extended recording CCTV and taken down the window coverings at the front of his shop. These measures should dramatically cut his chances of being *easily* robbed again. Other measures are being examined in addition to these.)
