Matt Mundy reports on a double shooting within firing range of his East London home.
A man is fighting for his life after he was shot down in a botched robbery late on Thursday night.
The shooting occurred outside Show Supermarket in Plaistow after brave shopkeepers chased two gunmen off the premises.
One of the shopkeepers, believed to be in his fifties, was shot in the chest. He received life-threatening wounds from a shotgun fired at close range. The other shopkeeper was shot in the leg.
Police cordoned off part of Greengate Street between Fenton’s Avenue and Balaam Street. Detectives were soon on the scene. Early on Friday morning uniformed police officers carried out house-to-house inquiries.
The victims and the gunmen were the only people in the shop at the time of the attempted robbery.
Double Shooting: Double Take
As someone who lives nearby, this incident tells me there is no definitive setting for a double shooting. Who would have foreseen it at a supermarket monitored by CCTV?
Nevertheless, on Halloween night Show Supermarket on Greengate Street – the main road through Plaistow – suffered a near-death experience.
And afterwards, the forensic routine which we have all learned from a lifetime of police procedurals: roads cordoned off with blue-and-white tape; flashing lights projecting into a brisk night sky; detectives deep in conversation.
Yes, I’ve seen it on screen a thousand times. But nothing prepared me for the shock of discovering, when I got home from a night out with my flatmates, that this scene really was being played out at our go-to store for that late-night bottle of milk.
Makes you think twice about what we take for granted.