A 15-year-old was stabbed to death in the late Enoch Powell’s former constituency of Wolverhampton shortly after gangs of young men were filmed brawling with machetes in broad daylight.
The men, who appear to be from a migration background, were filmed brawling with the huge blades by Facebook user Rozendeep Sidhu.
A clearer, zoomed in version of the shocking video was later shared by Birmingham Live, which reported that armed police rushed to the scene of the clash but found the thugs had already scattered.
So far, no arrests have been made.
Police appear to suspect the incident is linked to the deadly stabbing of 15-year-old Keelan Wilson, which took place a short distance away not long afterwards.
“We need to understand why this happened so it doesn’t happen to anybody else,” commented Chief Superintendent Jayne Meir.
“This was an absolutely unnecessary and tragic incident where a 15-year-old boy has lost his life. We need to stand up together as a community and stop this from happening.
“Our young people are increasingly feeling the need to carry weapons. The natural consequence of carrying weapons is that people get injured and on this occasion, someone lost their life. He [Keelan] was at the start of his life and it’s ended absolutely prematurely and we need to stop it happening to other young people in our city.”
David Jamieson, the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands, said he would attempt to tackle the violence overtaking the area by investing £2 million in “mentoring schemes” to “help young people make the right life choices,” and said he would employ “mediators to defuse gang violence”.
Wolverhampton also put out a new knife bin — the fourth of its kind in the city — earlier this year, in hopes that blade-carrying criminals might consider surrendering their weapons voluntarily.