Brown, the 20-year-old leader of a gang of youths in Hackney, wanted revenge on the two erring youngsters, who belonged to a rival gang. He and his gang, the Holly Street Boys, were joined by another gang, the Square Boys, based in Clapton. They had different reasons for striking at the two teenagers from the London Fields Boys (known as the LFB). One of the Square Boys' leaders, Aaron Salmon, a 17-year-old crack-cocaine dealer handy with a gun, had just been robbed by some of the LFB. At gunpoint, his car and heavy jewellery were taken, and worse — it was in front of his girlfriend.
The two gangs struck on a hot summer evening. There were at least nine of them in the hunting party, in a convoy of three cars. The senior members of the LFB, men in their mid-twenties and thirties, were known to be at a wake for a Jamaican who had been shot. The two disrespectful youths had been spotted with friends in the shadow of a tower block overlooking an area of worn green called London Fields. When the posse found them, they were playing "money-up" — throwing £1 coins at a wall, trying to win all the cash by getting their coin closest to the brickwork. As three hooded men emerged from the cars, a long-barrelled handgun alerted the targets. "It's what Clint Eastwood rolls with," an eyewitness recalled. Another gunman was seen aiming from the back of one of the cars. After shouts of "drive-by" and "machines" (guns), the group scattered. But the two youths who had offended Brown were not there — they had left about 30 minutes earlier. Nevertheless, the hyped-up attackers were determined to get somebody. Four loud bangs were heard. One bullet smashed into a windscreen. Another whizzed by the head of a 10-year-old boy on a bike. Young Jadie Brissett, 18, was hit twice. A bullet smashed into his upper left thigh, and a shotgun blasted a two-inch hole in his chest. Despite his wounds, he clambered over a wall, ran across a small patch of grass, over a fence, and finally collapsed and died next to some dustbins. The cycle of violence had started.
Brissett was popular. His only conviction involved possessing cannabis. That same evening his friends and relatives started tracking down those they believed responsible. The resulting retaliation caused more bloodshed, more grief and a criminal investigation that culminated in an estimated £5m in police and court costs.
The boy's murder made headlines only in east London. It was barely worth national attention with "black-on-black" gun murders in the capital taking place every few weeks. Although black people make up around 10% of London's population, they are involved in a staggering 70% of the city's shooting incidents. The same sort of figures are reported from the country's other main areas plagued by gun crime and gang feuds — Manchester, Nottingham, the West Midlands and Bristol. Generally, only those involving children or young women make headlines. Recent cases include the murder of seven-year-old Toni-Ann Byfield, shot with her drug-dealing father in his London bedsit; and the teenage girls Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, killed in crossfire at a New Year party in Birmingham. In a bizarre murder in 2002, two men were killed by the same bullet at another New Year party in east London. The bullet passed through the neck of the first man, the DJ Ashley Kenton, went through a wall and into the head of the second man, Wayne Mowatt.
Guns started to be increasingly used in our cities during the 1980s. Many of the shootings and murders were associated with turf wars involving the spread of crack cocaine. At that time, and during the next decade, Jamaicans were involved in most of the cases and Scotland Yard's response was slow — cynical, even. Who cared if black drug dealers were killing each other?
Two events changed that: the outcry over the murder by white racists of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence; and a series of horrific murders, prompting Scotland Yard to attempt to build bridges with the wider black community. In the space of a few weeks in 1998, a Jamaican gang committed three murders and a rape in London. One woman was shot dead in front of her two children. Another was tied to a chair, tortured, and then shot in the head, to be found by her three children the next day. With nobody knowing where the gang was going to strike next, activists who had previously branded the police racist demanded action from Scotland Yard. Welcoming the opportunity, the Metropolitan police piled money and resources into the investigation, and for the first time, black community leaders began helping the police. The gang was caught in what turned out to be a landmark case, leading to Scotland Yard creating Operation Trident, the branch dealing only with black shootings and murders. Such crime, acknowledges the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, represents the biggest problem after terrorism.
With 360 detectives and civilian staff, Trident has an annual budget of more than £23m, aided by community groups in "hot-spot" London boroughs. It's an alien world for many Trident detectives. One experienced sergeant vented his frustration after giving evidence in a murder case. The defendant "made the sign of a gun with his fingers and mouthed 'mum'. He was threatening to kill my mother," he says. "I just can't understand the mentality. I live outside London in a nice area. My friends and neighbours know I'm a cop, but they simply cannot comprehend what we're dealing with. When I leave home for work, it's like I'm going to a different planet."
Trident intelligence officers trying to keep track of their targets' movements are confronted with men who use different street names depending on which part of the country they are operating in. Gang structures and allegiances are fluid, and feuds and tit-for-tat shootings can start and end for no apparent reason. Trident crime is seen as disorganised and chaotic, largely because of the lifestyles of those involved. Good intelligence comes from registered informants, phone taps and bugs, but according to one senior detective it can be a gamble: "Our targets can change their minds in seconds, and that's very difficult. You can have really good intelligence that someone is going to be kidnapped. You hear the plans being made, the meeting points, who's involved and even where the kidnap will happen. You would bet your life savings on it being correct. But then you learn that instead of doing the kidnap, they've gone somewhere else. Then you have to decide: do you call it off, or do you stick with it, because it could still happen soon? Making the wrong decision can cost us dearly."
Until 2000, most gun crime was being committed by young men from Jamaica. Now British-born blacks are estimated to be involved in 80% of black-on-black gun crime. All of those involved in Brissett's murder and its violent aftermath were born in London and brought up by their mothers. With their fathers either in prison or with other women, they had no positive male role models. All had underachieved at school, had few if any qualifications and had no job. They saw the only way of getting money, girls and respect was through drug-dealing or robbery — often both. Like the others, Brown, the youth shown disrespect by the LFB, had a disturbed family background. He presented serious behavioural problems at four different schools, eventually being shunted off to a special-needs boarding establishment and returning home to Holly Street during holiday times.
From 2000 onwards he was committing serious violent crime. He stabbed a man three times during a fight at a party and was sent to a young offenders' prison for a year. Then came a conviction for abusive behaviour, assault and knife possession. Later, he was one of 20 youths arrested in connection with the stabbing to death of an Asian at the Notting Hill carnival. Brown had been "steaming" — one of a pack running through the crowds, stealing as they went and fighting or intimidating anyone who resisted. Found guilty of violent disorder, he was given 21 months — reduced to 12 after he gave evidence at the trial of the boys charged with murdering 10-year-old Damilola Taylor. He said he heard some of them discussing the stabbing while they were on remand in prison.
Several weeks before Brissett's murder, Brown was caught up in a dispute which may have contributed to the shooting at London Fields. It was between his Holly Street gang and the LFB and involved the earlier shooting of an LFB man. During an argument outside a court, Brown was stabbed in the back. Seeking shelter, he ran across the road to a police station. Fearing a further attack from the LFB, Brown asked for police and local-authority help in moving out of the area. He got it and moved to south London, where he started dealing in cars. He bought "write-offs" in scrapyards and patched them up with the help of a friend in a garage who passed them off as roadworthy by giving them MOT certificates. Brown paid no tax and, despite owning a Volkswagen Golf, had no insurance and had never passed a driving test. He carried and used false identification papers, and also dealt drugs.
Recruiting in Clapton Square for the attack on the LFB, Brown and the other leader of the pack, Salmon, told potential foot soldiers they were armed. Showing a rucksack containing guns, he said: "I'm strapped" (carrying a gun). Brown was wearing a glove on his right hand, recalled a witness: "It means he's carrying a firearm — that's the hand you're carrying a gun in, so you don't get fingerprints on it." Salmon had a different motive for hitting the LFB. He had been dealing crack cocaine with three others, with each of them making about £1,000 a week in profit. Salmon dealt under the name King, using three mobiles on which he referred to crack as "food". His relative wealth and girlfriends led to trouble from rivals. He was arrested twice for carrying a knife as protection.
