Are things worse now than when we were youth? I know its easy to say 'yes!', but I'm not sure if it's true. Maybe crimes are reported more widely now, I don't know.

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Teenager chased down and stabbed to death in street fight involving up to 40 youths


· Adults in homes witness violent midnight attack
· 16-year-old cried: 'Please help me', before collapsing

Helen Carter
Monday June 25, 2007
The Guardian

A 16-year-old was stabbed to death in a street fight involving up to 40 youths in Beckenham, Kent, late on Saturday.

Witnesses say Ben Hitchcock was attacked by a group who stamped on his head and forced him onto spiked metal railings. He and his friends had tried to flee from a gang armed with metal poles, broken bottles, and planks of wood. They heard him cry: "Please help me," before slumping to the ground.....

.....The murder followed the shooting of a girl in a fight at a bar in Tottenham, north London early on Saturday. Annaka Keniesha Pinto, 17, died yesterday afternoon in hospital. Elsewhere, a man in his 20s was shot dead in the street in Acton, west London.


Teenager chased down and stabbed to death in street fight involving up to 40 youths | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Miss Pinto was shot in the Swan bar in Philip Lane, Tottenham, north London, following "some kind of altercation", police said. She was critically injured and died in hospital at around 4.15pm on Saturday.

Lord have mercy...

"Are things worse now than when we were youth? I know its easy to say 'yes!', but I'm not sure if it's true. Maybe crimes are reported more widely now, I don't know"

Things were NEVER this bad in my youth.... everywhere is a NO GO ZONE for these youths now... youths in my day (I sound real old, im not!) never feared opening their front doors, never feared crossing over into other postcodes, never thought about walking with knives and guns for protection, never feared going to school because it was deemed dangerous, never feared going to the local youth club bcos their more likely to meet trouble in there - I mean WTF. These kids are growing up in some heinous times. YES, life is MUCH more worse NOW.

Mind you, my mid - late teens is when all the stepping on foot shite in clubs started to occur! However, unless you were a veteran bad boy youth, life was never like this back in the day! I mean we're now talking about youths as young as 13 years old involved in gun and knife crimes... No matter how much we consider moral panic spin.... Life was never this bad.