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The Turkish Gang War

The gang-related revenge killing or ‘tit for tat’ feud accounts for a very small proportion of murders in London. It is however one of the most disturbing, conjuring up echoes of the American mafia as represented by The Godfather and other films.

This type of murder appears to flourish when when those responsible seem to be getting away with it. The intended victims or targets seek revenge outside of the justice system and potential ‘hitmen’ are emboldened by the failure of detectives to solve a case.

The worst recent example is the ‘war’ between two gangs in north London, the Hackney Turks (Bombacilar) and the Tottenham Turks (Tottenham Boys). Between March 2009 and April 2013, five men were shot dead. Although most of the victims were members of the two gangs, one of them was entirely innocent.

Strikingly, none of the ‘hitmen’ who fired the shots were brought to justice until July 2014 (see below). Up until then, any convictions were restricted to the co-conspirators who enable the gunmen to carry out the murders: getaway drivers, spotters etc.

Although there have been previous incidents involving the two gangs, prosecutors have traced the feud back to a brawl at the Manor Club in Finsbury Park, north London, on 24 January 2009.

That night Kemal Armagan, the leader of the Hackney Turks, was injured in the fight and vowed to kill anyone who attacked him, including Mehmet Senpalit, a Tottenham Turk.

The feud that followed was described in court by Edward Brown QC in this way:

This feud has resulted over the last few years in murder, attempted murder, beatings, threats and damage to shops and the like belonging to those perceived to be associated to one gang or the other. It has therefore been a bloody and lethal campaign by each side. From relatively minor origins, this feud became a dreadful sequence of revenge attacks – not just a beating here or a punch there, but determined killings and attempts to kill.

A brief timeline:

8 March 2009: Kemal Armagan’s brother Ali Armagan is shot and injured, along with fellow Bombacilar Kenan Aydogdu.
22 March 2009: Ahmet Paytak, 50, is shot dead at Euro Food and Wines in Hornsey Road, Holloway, a store owned by Mehmet Senpalit. Kemal Armagan, who fled the UK shortly afterwards, is believed to have ordered the hit.
2 October 2009: Oktay Erbasli, a 23 year-old Tottenham Turk member, is shot and killed while driving in Tottenham.
5 October 2009: Cem Duzgun, a 21 year-old Hackney Turk member, is shot dead at a social club in Upper Clapton Road.
15 August 2010: An attempt to kill Kenan Aydogdu, a close friend of Ali Armagan.
1 February 2012: Ali Armagan, 32, is shot dead in his car near Turnpike Lane tube station. Kemal Eren, the leader of the Tottenham Turks, is believed to be responsible.
1 December 2012: Kemal Eren is shot and seriously injured in Elbistan, Turkey.
18 April 2013: Zafer Eren, 34, Kemal Eren’s brother, is shot dead in Southgate.

UPDATE: In July 2014 Jamie Marsh-Smith was jailed for at least 38 years for the murder of Zafer Eren. The judge John Bevan QC said: “The use of the streets of this city for fighting a Medieval turf war using hired hands as hit-men is as intolerable as it is unacceptable.”

Off the Map: The case of Dean Reddy

We added the case of 25 year-old Dean Reddy after detectives arrested his father on suspicion of murder.

Since then police have said they are no longer treating the death as suspicious and revealed that further tests established the cause of death was ‘sudden adult death syndrome’.

Here is the case page as it read before deletion:

Dean Reddy, 30, died after being found unconscious at a flat in Mill Hill, northwest London, on 23 February 2013.
Police were called to the address in Bittacy Hill following reports of a disturbance at around 11pm. Mr Reddy was pronounced dead at 11.51pm.
His 57 year-old father, who had suffered cuts to his face and neck, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder and later released on bail until April.
Following further investigation, detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command decided the death was no longer suspicious. No further action was taken.
murdermap

The Fall in Violent Crime and Murder

The release of the ‘UK Peace Index‘ (pdf link) has again highlighted the decline in violent crime (including murder) since 2003. “This is the fastest decline in violence of any country in Europe,” the report concludes.

It notes that the homicide rate (murder, manslaughter and infanticide) has halved over the last ten years to 1 per 100,000.

The bad news is that London scores badly with the capital’s boroughs occupying the top 17 ‘least peaceful areas’ of the UK – with Lewisham at the top. See Murder Britain – How does your area compare (Indy Voices).

But the cause of this decrease in crime and murder over the past decade is still unclear (fall in UK crime baffles experts) – particularly as the fall has continued in the face of a major recession. The explanations have varied from the reduction in the use of lead in paint and petrol) to cultural changes.

Here are some of the suggested reasons (feel free to add more in the comments):

A ‘symptom of a new morality‘ as people become less tolerant of criminal behaviour.
Lead poisoning. ‘Studies between cities, states and nations show that the rise and fall in crime follows, with a roughly 20-year lag, the rise and fall in the exposure of infants to trace quantities of lead.’
The decline in illegal drug use, particularly among the young. Drugs play a part both in petty crime (shoplifting etc to get money to feed the habit) and in violent crime (disputes between drug dealers / turf wars etc).
Legalised Abortion (The Donohue-Levitt hypothesis) – It is argued that unwanted children are more likely to become criminals.
Feminism – ‘Strong, autonomous feminist movements were the first to articulate the issue of violence against women and the key catalysts for government action, with other organizations sidelining issues perceived as being only important to women.‘
Policing – the targeting of specific types of homicide and violent crime, such as teenage knife crime (which reached a height in around 2007), gang violence (Operation Trident). In a recent statement, the Met highlighted its ‘series of high visibility ‘Big Wing’ operations engaging staff right across the MPS in joint action to target specific areas of crime, ranging from car crime to burglary.’ The ‘detection rate’ for homicide (number of cases where a suspect is charged) has remained high, meaning killers are less likely to get away with it. Improvements in technology (e.g. DNA, CCTV, mobile phones) also make it easier for police to identify suspects, resulting in more convictions and fewer unsolved cases.
Harsher sentencing – The 2003 Criminal Justice Act brought in set ‘tariffs’ or ‘minimum terms’ for life sentences, ranging from 15 years to whole life. For example, gun murders have a starting point of 30 years. In 2010, the minimum term for some knife murders rose from 15 years to 25 years.
The internet – are we more content with our lives due to social media? Perhaps young people are now too busy on their iPhones and game consoles to become involved in criminal behaviour. (On the other hand, mobile phone thefts/robberies have increased massively)
Improvements in medical care – see our blog on Emergency Medicine and the murder rate
Dodgy statistics – Are the police ‘cooking the books’ under pressure to beat targets? (This seems much more unlikely in the case of homicide – a crime that is harder to conceal).

So will it last? Some fear that the effects of the recession will result in rise in homicide (even if it hasn’t happened yet).

The latest homicide figures for London do show a slight increase for the financial year 2012/13 (106) compared to 2011/12 (103), with the lowest 12 month rolling figure being achieved in the summer of 2012 (96).

What happens next may give us a better indication of the factors behind the recent decrease in homicide and violent crime.

How safe is London?

We were recently sent an email by a worried student asking about the likelihood of being murdered in London. This is perhaps not surprising given the prominence given to reports of teenagers being stabbed to death or shot.

As we’ve repeatedly demonstrated, the number of homicide cases (both murder and manslaughter) has been going down steadily from a peak in 2003. Last year there were less than 100, which is returning to the levels last seen in the 60s and 70s.

London may have more crime than any other area, but this is mainly because there are more people in London (approximately eight million). As you can see, if you rate different police forces by the number of murders per 100,000 people, London is only tenth highest, with the worst being West Yorkshire. Having said that, it is higher than the avarage for England and Wales.

And if you look at it by country, then ‘England in Wales’ is doing better than both Scotland and Northern Ireland, although it’s some way behind Austria and even Italy.

The country with the highest ‘murder rate’ is Lithuania – which is of interest given the increase in the number of people from that country now living in London and the rest of the UK. According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 74,000 Lithuanians in the UK in 2010 compared to 4,000 in 2001.

According to the 2011 census there were just under 40,000 Lithuanians in London, although some believe the true figure may be double that. In some areas like Newham Lithuanians make up 2.7 per cent of the population.

Two Lithuanians were allegedly murdered in London last month alone (January 2013) but this is rare – there were two Lithuanian murder victims in the whole of 2012, none in 2011, two in 2010 and three in 2009. Generally the victims seem to die at the hands of fellow Lithuanians, in temporary accommodation or squats, and involving the excessive consumption of alcohol. (see the cases of Rolandas Vosylius, Paulius Riepsa and Alvydas Miksys.)

The recently-released figures for Homicide in England in Wales for the financial year 2011/12 (around 540 homicides in total) also contained a breakdown for gender and weapon (by percentage). As in London, most victims are male.

Apparent method of killing (percent)	Male victims (367 offences)	Female victims (172 offences)

Sharp instrument	39	38
Blunt instrument	10	9
Hitting, kicking etc. (without a weapon)	23	5
Strangulation, asphyxiation	4	26
Shooting	9	4
Burning	3	5
Poison or drugs	2	3
Other	11	10

It should also be pointed out that ‘stranger’ murders are actually quite rare. Most cases involve gang-related violence, domestic violence or fights at pubs or clubs. And while it’s always advisable not to walk alone in the streets at night, the likelihood of being murdered in London is very low indeed.

Review of 2012

The number of homicides in London fell by nearly 20 per cent from last year – with 97 victims compared to 117 in 2011 (Note this was later increased to 99 – see update below).

This continuing decrease in the murder rate – despite budget cuts in the police force – brings it down to levels not seen since the 1960s.

Nearly four out of five victims were male (75 out of 97). Only eight of the 97 were teenagers, compared to 15 in 2011.

Six victims were killed with guns (down from 13 in 2011) and 43 with knives (down from 57 in 2011). Most of the remaining victims were killed with no weapon (i.e. manual strangulation, punches, kicks). One victim was stabbed with a broken glass and another died after being mauled by a dog.

Here’s a chart of the homicides for each month – the average was just over eight.

The borough with the most homicides in 2012 was Croydon with seven. Of the ‘improving boroughs’, Lambeth went from 11 in 2011 to four in 2012, while Tower Hamlets decreased from nine to three and Bexley from five to one. The City of Westminster’s total jumped up from one to five.

At present only 12 of the 97 cases (12.4 per cent) remain ‘unsolved’ in the sense that nobody has yet been charged (or arrested overseas on a warrant).

This pie chart gives the totals for each borough (including the City of London):

Asked by murdermap for a comment on the decrease in homicides, DCS Hamish Campbell, head of homicide investigations at Scotland Yard, said: “It is always encouraging to see a drop in the number of homicides and serious crime. We liaise with many agencies in the course of our work, and the co-operation we receive from the community is vital in driving down these types of offences.

“The Metropolitan Police will continue to be rigorous in the detection and investigation of murders in the capital.”

UPDATE: On January 23 DCI Campbell gave a fuller response to the Evening Standard giving the official Met Police figures of 99 homicides in 2012.

Read Safe London – murder rate hits 42 year low – Evening Standard

NOTE: We had originally counted 95 homicides: Since then we have added the case of Delores Smith (December 27) and Douglas Hutchinson (December 13, suspect originally charged with attempted murder).

NOTE UPDATE (Jan 2014): Two further homicides for 2012 were later added, making a total of 99.