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Due to a technical problem, the car of the victim in the Roderick Road shooting shown on page 2 of today's CNJ displays the registration number of another vehicle entirely unconnected with the incident.
Police, including forensic teams, at the scene of the shooting in Roderick Road, Gospel Oak, yesterday morning |
GUN DRAMA: MAN FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE
Suspected victim survived knife and gun attacks in past
GUNSHOTS were fired in a quiet residential street yesterday morning (Wednesday) in an attack which left a man fighting for his life in hospital.
Police have not publicly identified the victim but he is thought to be Kevin Williams, who was the subject of an attempted murder three years ago in Queen’s Crescent.
In dramatic scenes, the shot man was carried from Roderick Road in Gospel Oak – screaming in agony – to an air ambulance which landed in nearby Parliament Hill Fields.
He was flown to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where his condition late last night was described as “serious but stable” by Scotland Yard.
Earlier hospital reports indicated his injuries were “life-threatening”.
It is understood the man was shot at close range as he sat in the driving seat of a car at the corner of Roderick Road and Mansfield Road.
Accounts of the incident included reports of a gunman firing twice through the car window, shattering the glass and injuring the man, possibly in the chest or stomach.
William Nawrocki, who lives in the area, said: “He was still alive and screaming in pain. He had a breathing mask on and a blanket. His clothes had been stripped off to look for entry wounds. He looked in shock and he was taking oxygen. They got him away in the helicopter very quickly.”
As a police cordon widened across Mansfield Road, residents gave differing accounts. Some reported seeing a youth on a mountain bike fleeing the scene with a pistol holster strapped across his back, while others say the suspect simply walked away towards Waxham council estate block in Mansfield Road. There were also claims that the gunman escaped over the footbridge leading to the Heath.
Throughout the day, some of Mr Williams’s friends made their way to the scene of the shooting. The former Acland Burghley pupil’s “Man Mountain” reputation increased after he survived near-death attacks. In September 2006, Mr Williams, 30, fought for life after an ambush by two men with knives in a Queen’s Crescent newsagent. That attack saw his assailant Aaron Williams, no relation, of Somers Town, jailed for 16 years the following year. Then in January this year it is understood he was shot in the leg in Camden Town and needed further hospital treatment.
Within a short distance of the peaceful haven of the Heath, residents of Roderick Road were stunned to hear the sound of gunfire at around 11am. One described it as “two loud bangs and then straight after that wheels screeching. It sounded like a drag race or a car backfiring. You could tell something crazy was happening. Then I heard people shouting ‘he’s been shot, he’s been shot’ and people saying [the gunman] walked off in the direction of Mansfield Road”.
As a manhunt began, armed police guarded the scene as forensic teams began their work. Operation Trident, the arm of the Yard which deals with so-called black on black crime, has been called in to investigate.
A police spokesman said: “Police were called at about 10.50am to reports of shots fired in Roderick Road. On arrival, police discovered a man aged approx 30 years old suffering from gunshot wounds.
“He was taken to an east London Hospital by air ambulance.” |
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