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TEEN SHOOTING: Residents horror as victim dies in gutter
HORRIFIED residents and workers told today how they rushed into the street after hearing gunshots to discover a teenager dying in the gutter.
Pensioner Audrey Bowring, aged 72, who lives in a maisonette on Spital Street, heard two shots fired and ran out to see the victim - named today by pals as 17-year-old Tarek Chaiboub - bleeding on the pavement.
"I heard two shots go off," she said. "I ran to the front and saw this young lad laid in the gutter. He only looked about 14 or 15 to me.
"There's a doctor's across the road and one of the nurses came running across and she was trying to get his heart going. Then the ambulance came and we heard one man say as he walked past, 'He's dead'.
"It's horrible - to have that happen on our own doorstep."
She said youths often congregate outside the barber's shop, waiting for it to open so they can get their hair cut.
"We've never had any trouble before but they all stand waiting for the barber to come. The steps are always full of lads," she said.
Yassin Saeed, 33, who works in a mobile phone store and cafe at the corner of Spital Street and Spital Hill, said: "People came in saying there had been a shooting. I went out and just saw him on the ground.
He had been shot in the abdomen and there was a lot of bleeding. I saw a lady doing CPR. There was a crowd around the body.
"The youngsters at the moment seem to have gone crazy. You don't feel safe in this area anymore with this kind of thing happening in the middle of the day when there were so many people about."
One eyewitness, a woman who works on Spital Hill yards from the scene, said: "I heard the shot. It was about 1pm and I looked at my colleague and said, 'That's definitely a gunshot'.
"From my window I could see an arm from a body on the ground.
"There was obviously someone lying there, and you could see people walking towards the body were just horrified.
"A nurse or doctor wearing a blue uniform from the nearby medical centre gave CPR. Police then arrived and they had big blocks of cotton wool which they used to try to stop the bleeding.
"He had been shot in the abdomen and they tried to turn him over to stem the blood but there was no sign of life. He was like a rag doll.
"It's so scary - I don't live here but I work here every day and it happened outside a children's centre in broad daylight.
"It just makes you despair for young people. I just don't understand what's going on in their minds."
Keith Hobson, who runs a butcher's shop on Spital Hill, said: "I've been here since 1972 and there's always something happening here.
"I had been out, I came back to the shop, and I saw all the police. These things are just becoming a matter of fact.
"Customers aren't going to be wanting to walk around here. You only have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
A high-level police briefing was called yesterday afternoon for detectives to discuss the murder investigation.
Chf Supt Broadbent confirmed: "At 1.45pm a young Asian male was fatally shot on Spital Hill at the corner of Spital Street.
"He received at least one gunshot wound to his torso and we are not sure exactly how many more. He was taken to the Northern General Hospital but was already dead.
"We know who he is but he cannot be formally identified yet as all his family have not been informed."
The Abbeyfield Park Multi-Cultural Festival tomorrow, in Abbeyfield Park, Burngreave, may be cancelled. Organisers were due to attend an emergency meeting this afternoon, and make a decision later based on police advice.
Office workers in Burngreave found their cars had been trapped behind a police cordon, erected around the murder scene, and they could not get home.
Officers taped off several streets from the bottom of Spital Hill to 50 metres past the junction with Spital Street. Spital Lane to the junction with Andover Street was closed, and Burngreave Road to the junction with Brunswick Road was also shut.
Traffic was diverted via Carlisle Street and Gower Street or by Gower Street, Sutherland Street and Savile Street. Road closures were still in place this morning.
The local Safer Neighbourhood Team was out in the community offering a reassuring presence to the public.
Anyone with information about the incident should call police on 0114 220 2020 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
READ MORE
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Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light sleet
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light snow
Temperature: -6 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
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