A 16-year-old girl was hospitalised on Friday after a shot was fired into a crowd in the multicultural city of Manchester, England.
The victim of the shooting, carried out despite draconian gun control in Great Britain, which rule of home defence and self-defence as valid reasons to own a firearm and all but completely ban the private ownership of handguns and most semi-automatic rifles, does not appear to have been the gunman’s intended target.
“We’re investigating a drive-by shooting in Manchester last night that has left a teenage girl hospitalised,” confirmed Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in an official statement.
“Shortly before 10:30 p.m. on Friday (29 July) we were called to a report of a person injured outside an address on Quinney Crescent in the Moss Side area of the city,” they explained.
“The victim – a 16-year-old girl – was taken to hospital in a stable condition with a wound that is believed to have been caused by a firearms discharge.
“Thankfully, her physical injuries are understood to not be serious and our officers are with her and her family as she continues to recover in hospital,” they went on — although how non-serious a gunshot wound requiring an extended hospital stay can be is open to question.
GMP added that detectives from their Criminal Investigation Department (CID) currently believe “a single shot was fired by a passing vehicle at a crowd.”
“It is not thought that the girl was the intended target but enquiries are moving at pace to establish the reason for the incident and – ultimately – the people responsible for it,” they said.
City of Manchester division commander Chief Superintendent Robert Cousen said his “thoughts [were] with the victim” but also emphasised that, supposedly, her “physical injuries are thankfully not serious” — although he did add that this “does not diminish what could’ve happened here as incidents of this nature are always reckless, serious and risk lives being lost.”
“We’re doing all we can to unpick the circumstances of this incident and to ensure that whoever is responsible is caught and brought to justice,” he said.
Cousen added that GMP are aware that “there was a party” at the time of the shooting and that they were confident there are “a number of potential witnesses” to it.
GMP are urging anyone with relevant information to contact them via the LiveChat facility on their website or by calling directly on 0161 856 4382 quoting incident 3388 of 29/07/2022.
They also stressed that people hesitant to speak to police could instead pass along information anonymously through Crimestoppers, an independent charity, which can be reached on 0800 555 111.