Man 'with gun' shot dead by Yard police

A man was shot dead by police on a housing estate in London on Monday afternoon.

The black man in his 30s was reported to have been armed with a handgun shortly before being killed by officers from a Scotland Yard armed response team. A neighbour said she heard four shots and later described the heavily bleeding man begging her for help as he lay dying on the pavement.

What appeared to be a handgun was found close by but there were suggestions last night that the weapon was a novelty cigarette lighter. Scotland Yard declined to comment but said it had been sent off for forensic analysis.

The death was the second fatal shooting involving the police in England in the past five days, the same number as in the 12 months up to March this year. A man armed with a samurai sword was shot dead in Liverpool last Thursday.

Armed police were called to a block of flats in Loughborough Road, Brixton, south London, after receiving reports at about 3pm of a man allegedly holding a silver handgun. But the man had left by the time officers arrived. At 3.20pm, a man was shot near by at Crowhurst Close in the Angell Town estate.

He was taken to King's College Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4.26pm. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin said two witnesses saw the shooting.

At a press conference held before the gun was recovered and the scene examined, he said: "It is very early into the investigation. At the scene, as we speak, we have what appears to be a handgun."

The dead man's identity has not been released but rumours were circulating the estate that he had family living nearby and he was mentally ill.

Witnesses said that armed police in a car had "screeched" into the street outside the estate, and officers had jumped over a small wall on to a ramp leading up to the first-floor balcony where the man had been. Some said they thought they heard the police call a warning to the man before shooting him in the side.

One young mother said: "I was in my flat and I heard four shots. I came out and saw one policeman standing round looking at this man on the floor. I ran back in to get my clothes and came out again. I said to the policeman, 'Put him in the recovery position' and he said, 'Do you know first aid?'

"The man was gasping for air. He was wearing a blue track suit and he had dreadlocks and a very fat, almost bloated face.

"They flipped him over on to his face and I could see he'd been shot on the left. There was blood everywhere. I felt absolutely terrified."

She said that within minutes dozens of police officers arrived as she pleaded with them to call an ambulance. "That man died on the spot. Everyone is very upset and wants to know why they had to kill him. He was running into a dead end. They could have shot him in the legs. I just can't believe it. What I can't understand is how they can be trained in firearms and not trained in first aid. I don't really know whether he was ill but a man from the housing association said he understood that he was a mentally unstable person. I didn't see a gun."

Other neighbours said that the dead man was known on the estate, which used to be a violent and notorious "no-go" area but was being rebuilt.

Last night there anger was emanating from some sections of the community, with shouts of "murderers" aimed at police officers as they searched the cordoned-off area.

There were few visible signs of tension, though, as many of the locals gathered on the grass outside the estate laughed and joked with the police officers. Nicholas Long, an independent member of the Metropolitan Police Association said: "Brixton seems calm. I think this is a plus for Brixton in the sense that everybody is being very calm."

The independent Police Complaints Authority is to oversee an inquiry into the shooting.

Meanwhile the mother of Andrew Kernan, 37, a schizophrenic who was shot dead by Merseyside Police while armed with a sword last Thursday, denied yesterday that he had been a danger to the public and said he was a "gentle giant".

Marie Kernan, 59, said: "Police should use stun guns. You don't kill somebody with a mental illness. What sort of a society is that?"