- Jan 20, 2006
- 45,213
- 8,229
I'm not saying I know everything about the area. I said "bullets flying every other night of the week". The stats back this up.
I couldn't give a flying fuck what you know pal. Those places are very different beasts to how they were back then - particularly the demographic. I understand why you'd be offended, but you cannot deny your local area has an issue with gun crime, you simply can't.
There is no attraction for anyone to go there at any other time than a match day, other than those that live there and a big reason for that is the crime.
But, sadly for you, you have as much clue about what those stats mean as you do about Tottenham. They were much bandied about by lazy journalists at the time of the riots and are, in fact, the figures for Haringey as a whole. They're very much in line with the figures published by the Met for the twelvemonths ending in May 2013 and May 2012. Furthermore, 'gun crime' according to the official police definition does not have to be a shooting, does not have to involve a fatality or a wounding, does not have to involve a real gun (an air gun, a starting pistol or a replica also counts); the weapon can be used as a threat or as a blunt instrument. The last time I can recall bullets flying in the streets was almost two years ago, and they were police ones.
Yes, the area has a serious issue with gun crime, like several other London boroughs; to reiterate, as seems sadly necessary, gun crime does not and never has impinged on my daily life or the daily life of anyone I know. The two statements are not mutually exclusive. If you don't get it, too bad. I'm not going to lower the Flesch Reading Ease of my posts for you or anyone else.
Harehills and Chapeltown can't have changed that much if you used them as examples of dodgy areas of Leeds.