Utterly Senseless…

It seems Romford is in the news again, and once again, not for anything good:

A boy of four was fighting for his life last night after being shot with a maritime distress flare.

The child was walking hand-in-hand with his parents just yards from their home on an inland council estate.

Note the ‘inland’ there. Because the ‘Mail’ wants to make it quite clear that this was unexpected, as if, had it been a seaside resort estate, it would be acceptable…

The flare, normally used by ships, coastguards and the military, was fired horizontally into the street from some distance away.

It narrowly missed the boy’s two-year-old sister, who was in a pushchair, before hitting him in the back, causing severe internal injuries.

When they catch them - if they catch them – I’d have no objection to them tying one of these to their genitals and lighting the blue touch paper, then standing well back…

Last night the boy was in a medically-induced coma on life support in hospital, with his condition described as critical but stable.

Police said they believed the family, who were on their way to a children’s birthday party, were deliberately targeted.

Not ‘deliberately targeted’ in the sense that they were targeted because of who they were, one hopes.

More in the sense that this thing was deliberately aimed at a person, and not simply an accidental discharge.

Detective Inspector David Cavanagh said: ‘This thing was being pointed at this group, without doubt.

'It’s not something that has gone off by accident…’

Quite…

Police are appealing for two witnesses to come forward – the woman who stopped to help and a young black boy who asked about the victim’s health at the scene but had gone when police arrived.

Detective stressed that he is a witness, not a suspect.

It seems odd that they need to say this, until one remembers that the police are now, above all things, so politically correct that they need to say it…