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GANG STONE PATROL FOR FIFTH TIME
Insiders warn: ‘Housing security staff will get killed’
A HOUSING security man was “nearly blinded” when his patrol of a Kentish Town estate was met with a hail of stones in the fifth attack of its kind in the past three months.
The council security officer had to be treated in hospital for an injury above his eye and to his ribs after a gang stoned the two-man patrol and tried to hijack their vehicle on the Peckwater estate at around 8pm on Sunday.
Another housing officer, who asked not to be named, said: “It was a hail of stones and he could have been blinded.
“This will go on until someone is seriously injured or even killed. They are dealing with situations that should be dealt with by the police and the council does not seem to care.”
Four other housing patrol officers have been injured, one seriously, in separate stoning attacks in housing estates in Gospel Oak since March.
After the first incidents, officers were issued with “bumper caps” – a kind of reinforced baseball cap – as protection.
The attacks have prompted accusations that the housing patrol officers – who have no powers of arrest and are hired through a private security company by the council – are being used as a cheap substitute for policing to hold down worsening disturbances across NW5.
The same unrest is suspected as being behind the slashed tyres of more than 30 cars in Mansfield Road, Oak Village and Lissenden Gardens over the weekend.
The council has refused to speculate on why its patrols are coming under attack, but a statement released on Tuesday said: “We are working closely with a wide range of partners including the police to explore actions that can be taken to reduce the possibility of further incidents of this type.”
Patrols will double up in trouble-spot areas, she added. |
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