Tottenham shooting victim pictured: girl, 17, killed in north London 'drive-by' while chatting to friends in street

Victim, 17, named locally as Tanesha ++++ She was chatting with friends when she was killed in a 'gang drive-by' according to witnesses ++++ 16-year-old shot and a boy aged 15 stabbed in separate incident in Walthamstow, east London ++++ 47 murders in London so far this year
The 17-year-old shooting victim has been named locally as Tanesha
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A teenage girl was killed in a suspected drive-by shooting and a boy of 16 was left fighting for his life in two gangland attacks in London.

Tanesha Melbourne, 17, was talking to friends when a car “rolled by” and a gunman opened fire from a window, witnesses said.

The aspiring beautician was hit in the chest shortly after 9.30pm in Tottenham last night. In tributes, a teacher said: “She was a joyful girl ... only a baby really.”

Paramedics fought to save her in the street but she was pronounced dead at 10.43pm. In a separate attack outside a leisure centre in Walthamstow half an hour later, the 16-year-old boy was shot and another boy of 15 was stabbed.

The latest attacks came amid mounting alarm at the rate of killings in London. So far this year, there have been 47 murders, with 15 in February and 22 last month — both totals exceeding the murder rate for the same period in New York. Detectives appealed for witnesses to the shooting in Chalgrove Road, Tottenham, saying officers were called to the sound of gun shots at 9.35pm. Fatima O’Dwyer, who knew the victim, heard the shots from her home and came running out.

She said: “Everyone was saying she was talking to a couple of guys and a car rolled by and started shooting up everyone. She wasn’t the target, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. For a girl to be caught in the middle is devastating. The family were screaming when the police broke the news.”

A police tent at the scene in Tottenham
Lucy Young

Another witness said he heard three loud bangs and then saw the girl slumped in the street and people racing to try to save her. He said: “I ran out and there was a girl propped up with blood coming from a wound which looked like it was in her chest. At first she was speaking but then she just slumped down and to me it was obvious she was dead or dying.”

Tyesha Mingo, 21, who held the girl as she died, said: “I tried to save her. She was a good girl, no trouble.

Investigators at the scene of the fatal shooting in Tottenham
Nigel Howard

“She was in her house before it happened and she had gone out and was just literally chilling with her friends.

“She was with her best friend who came banging on my door screaming that Tanesha has been shot. I put her on her side and rubbed her back.

“I told her ‘everything is going to be okay, your mum is on her way’. She was sitting up but couldn’t respond.”

A girl aged 17 was shot dead in Tottenham
Nigel Howard

Tanesha had left Gladesmore Community school last year. Associate headteacher Goldwater Ojokor said the school was in mourning. “She was a lovely, joyful, girl. She was bright and bubbly, she was only a baby really.

“She always had a smile on her face. You could not be annoyed with her, she just had this wonderful smile and was never in any bad trouble. She was always so positive to be around, you couldn’t not warm to her. She had a soft warm nature and she was funny.

“She had two brothers at the school who have left, my thoughts are with them and the family. As far as I know she wanted to go into a career in hair and beauty after she left us.”

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, said police were introducing blanket stop-and-search powers after the 16-year-old was shot outside Walthamstow Leisure Centre in Markhouse Road.

Two youths were also shot and stabbed in Walthamstow

Writing on her Facebook page, she said firearms officers, attended the scene and found the boy with a gunshot wound to his face. She added that the 15-year-old suffered stab wounds to his arms. The 16-year-old remained in a critical condition and the 15-year-old was said to be serious but stable.

Police said they were not treating the two shootings as linked. Tanesha’s murder came amid fears of an escalating “postcode war” between gangs in Tottenham and nearby Wood Green.

Last month aspiring rapper Kelvin Odunuyi, 19, was shot dead outside a cinema in Wood Green by a gunman on a moped.

Kelvin Odunuyi, 19, was shot dead outside a cinema in Wood Green last month

The Walthamstow victims were thought to have been treated at the Royal London hospital major trauma centre in Whitechapel. Dr Jonny Scrimshaw, an emergency medicine doctor at Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the Royal London, said: “The number of children stabbed and shot this weekend that we have had to treat is very upsetting. This is an epidemic of violence against and between kids and we ought to be outraged. We ought to be motivated to fix it and we shouldn’t rest until we have...

“As a society we, the adults, deem these kids do not have sufficient capacity to understand politics and vote, yet we have made a society on their behalf that fails them. It’s time for a concerted effort from society and government to address this.”

At the weekend Met Commissioner Cressida Dick blamed social media for the soaring rate of knife crime in London, particularly among children. She told The Times that trivial disputes could escalate into violence “within minutes” when rivals abused each other online. On Thursday, the family of Abraham Badru, 26, who was shot dead in Hackney on March 25, warned that “gun culture is becoming rampant in our community”.

Abraham Badru, 26, was an aspiring PhD student who was well-loved by friends and family
Metropolitan Police

Details also emerged today of three other killings in London last week. Reece Tshoma, 23, was stabbed near Plumstead station on Thursday night. He died at an east London hospital after being helped to A&E by a friend. Mr Tshoma was believed to be a cousin of Aston Villa footballer Aaron Tshibola.

Three days later, on Easter Sunday, Devoy Burton-Stapleton, 20, was stabbed to death on Ellerton Road, Wandsworth, while walking home from a bar just after 1am. Meanwhile, Leyla Mtumwa, 38, originally from Tanzania, died on Good Friday after being stabbed at a property in Haringey.

Leyla Mtumwa was stabbed to death in Haringey
Met Police

Kema Salum, 38, has been charged with her murder.

Downing Street said the performance of the Metropolitan Police in preventing violent crime was the responsibility of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

Mrs May’s spokesman said: “These are all tragic cases. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims.”

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