Police hunting the killer of a teenager shot in the face in north-east London are investigating why he was picked out for a “determined attack”.

Amaan Shakoor, 16, was shot on Monday evening in Walthamstow about 30 minutes after Tanesha Melbourne-Blake, 17, was killed in a drive-by shooting nearby in Tottenham. It leaves open the prospect that Tanesha was not the intended target.

Tensions continued to run high on Wednesday in Tottenham, where police enforced a section 60 order from 3pm authorising officers to conduct stop and searches without suspicion amid fears that Tanesha’s killing could lead to more violence.

The Met said it had put 102 orders in place across London. The use of section 60 powers is highly controversial and in recent years their use – which previously led to African-Caribbean people being up to 27 times more likely to be stopped than white people – has been scaled back. Police say they use the power where they have intelligence that violence is planned.



Tanesha’s death is understood to be linked to a gang feud and is also thought to have followed an escalation of violence driven on social media, with a video circulating locally of a clash in a milkshake bar that was said to be the catalyst for the attack.

The shooting of Amaan was different, detectives believe, with the boy being subjected to a deliberate attack by at least one gunman. One local said Amaan had been in the “wrong place at the wrong time” and police were hunting for reasons why the teenager was picked out, which may include the killing being based on a mistaken identity.

Amid mounting concerns about London’s worsening violent crime rate, one of the capital’s four trauma units reported troubling figures. The Royal London hospital said it had treated a third more young victims of knife crime and three times more young adults with gunshot wounds in the first quarter of this year than it did during same period last year.

The hospital in east London dealt with 42 people under 18 who had been stabbedin the first three months of 2018.

In the same period it treated 15 young adults – 18 to 25 – with bullet wounds. The hospital has treated 23 people in total gunshot wounds this year, compared with 10 in the same period in 2017.



On Wednesday, police in south-west London charged a man with the murder of Devoy Burton-Stapleton, who was stabbed after leaving a bar in Wandsworth on Sunday morning. Billy Botton, 24, who lives locally, was in custody before a hearing at Wimbledon magistrates court.

In Lewisham, south-east London, a 78-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after a suspected burglar was fatally stabbed. It is the capital’s 49th investigation into a killing this year.

In a separate murder investigation, a reward of £20,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers of Abraham Badru, 26, who was shot in Hackney, east London, on 25 March. Detectives are investigating whether Badru was killed for his role in bringing rapists to justice a decade ago.

According to local sources, the video linked to the Tanesha Melbourne-Blake case – seen by the Guardian – shows young people from the Northumberland Park area beating an older man from the Wood Green area, continuing their attack even as his girlfriend tried to shield him with her body.

The video was said to have been recorded on Saturday at the Tinseltown diner in Farringdon. A Met spokeswoman would not confirm reports that officers had seized CCTV from the restaurant, but added: “They are keeping an open mind and they are not confirming whether this is linked to any incident.” A worker at the restaurant declined to comment.

A second social media video seen by the Guardian shows young people bragging about the incident. In the video they brandish the victim’s phone, and other posts claim he was targeted because he had mocked the victim of an earlier shooting in Tottenham.

On Tuesday night community activists led a peace march from Seven Sisters underground station past a supermarket where Tanesha was seen on CCTV walking with friends, then north to the spot where she was fatally shot minutes later.



Talking into a megaphone in front of a crowd of young men, some of whom had covered their face, one speaker said: “We’ve got aunties out here who care about you lot. I care about you lot. If no one ever tells young men that they love you … I fucking love you. I fucking love you. You understand me? Nobody’s going to beat this love.”