Multiple people have been hospitalised following shooting at an engagement party in inner-city Manchester.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) reported “a number of people presenting themselves at hospital with apparent gunshot wounds” shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday following an incident in the Longsight area of the multicultural city.
“Four people attended hospital in total, one man aged 54 is being treated for serious injuries to his arm and another 48-year-old man is in a serious condition and has undergone surgery,” the force confirmed in an official statement.
“A 27-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl were also injured, it is unclear whether this is a result of a gunshot, debris from the discharge or from the disturbance at the scene,” they added, noting that another 16-year-old has been discharged from hospital.
While details of the incident are still emerging, GMP have disclosed that “It appears the group had been at an engagement party at an address on Birch Hall Lane in Longsight where a large amount of people had gathered,” and that it seems that “at some point, shortly before 1 a.m. an altercation took place, possibly in the garden, and it’s been reported five gun shots were fired.”
The force also “received a report of a car on its roof on Thoresway Road, Longsight” shortly before 2 a.m. but is yet to establish a definitive link between this discovery and the shooting.
Gun violence in not new to Manchester, despite Britain’s draconian gun control regime, with men on a “moped-style motorbike” carrying out a drive-by spray shooting of a terraced house in 2018 and 10 people including two children being hospitalised after shooting at a ‘Caribbean Carnival’ later in the same year, to cite just two examples.
While gun control was relatively unknown in Britain in the early part of the 20th-century — with socialist author George Orwell famously opining that the “rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage is a symbol of democracy” as a possession a totalitarian state could never trust the people with — it is heavily restricted in the present day, with handguns, in particularly, being almost completely outlawed under Tony Blair in the late ’90s.
This did not prevent firearms offences involving handguns rising by some 40 percent in the two years following the ban, and there have been significant year-or-year increases in gun crime regardless of the control regime more recently as well.
“This kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable, and will not be tolerated,” said Superintendent John Harris on the subject of the engagement party shooting, on behalf of the City of Manchester District team at Greater Manchester Police.
“Our enquiries are still in the very early stages as we piece together what took place overnight, but we are currently at the scene and we are collating any evidence that can aid in our pursuit of who is responsible,” the superindent continued.
“We understand that this incident is worrying for the community, we have extra police patrols in place, and we will work to find out exactly what has happened, and bring those responsible to justice.
Superintended Harris added that “As we piece together the details, if you live in the area, and heard anything last night then I urge you to contact us, as any information could really help at this stage.”