The 'Guardian' does one of its 'deep dives' into a social issue, in a bid to ensure the real cause isn’t mentioned. This time, it’s knife crime.
But away from opportunistic politicking and tabloid frenzy is a side of the story we tend to see less: the voices of the hundreds of people who silently bleed from every stab wound inflicted.
Jessica Plummer, whose son was stabbed to death in 2015; Martin Griffiths, a trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital; Jacob*, who used to carry a knife himself; and Graeme Halleron, a Met Police officer working in violence prevention — all of their lives are a reminder of the infinite and devastating diameter of a knife.
The mother:
It was a bright and chilly Tuesday afternoon in January 2015, and 17-year-old Shaquan Sammy-Plummer was in good spirits. He had come home from college, Camden’s LaSwap, and was laughing with his mum, Jessica, as he quickly got dressed to head out to work at Waitrose. Shaquan did not make it home that day.
After work, he stopped by a house party in Winchmore Hill, but was turned away at the door by Jemal Williams, who told him it was full, but demanded that Shaquan hand over the drinks and snacks he had brought. Shaquan refused, but made no fuss and walked away.
He was only a few doors down when Williams grabbed a knife from the house, chased after Shaquan, and plunged it into his chest.
In the years since Shaquan’s death, Plummer has worked tirelessly to educate young people in London about the dangers of knife crime, speaking in schools on behalf of The Shaquan Sammy-Plummer Foundation, the charity she set up in her son’s name.
‘When I talk to children these days, they say, “There’s nowhere for us to go.” The youth centres have been shut down, so they find themselves outside. And that’s where the problems start.’
Ah, yes. That old chestnut. If only Jamal had had access to a youth club, he wouldn’t have been a short-tempered waste of oxygen, and would have made something of himself, like Shaquan, who, errr, didn’t appear to have had access to a youth club either. At least, it’s not mentioned.
So, since they were both young black boys, perhaps there’s some other factor at play?
The surgeon:
‘Often it’s over nothing,’ he says, when I ask about what he and St Giles see as common causes of knife attacks. ‘Impulse control, money, prestige. The stimulus can be minimal and the action is horrendous. Occasionally, something more significant, some sort of long, deep-seated issue. But more often than not, it’s trivial — he said this, she said that. A lot of this stuff seems to be an insanely cheap tariff for a life.’
‘I don’t lament my choices,’ he says. ‘I’m good at what I do. What I lament is that this is happening in a first-world country with lots of resources. That’s what makes me annoyed.’
Happening in a first world country, yes, but is it happening mainly to first world cultures?
The gang member:
‘The first time I carried a knife…’ Jacob pauses for a moment, shifting in his seat. ‘I didn’t even really think about it. I’ve just taken this big kitchen knife, put it down my pants and walked out. And I’m just thinking, “I’m gonna get this guy today. Now.”’
What led to a then 21-year-old Jacob feeling the cool blade of a knife against his thigh, searching the streets of London for its intended target, is both remarkably trivial and incredibly complex. The flashpoint was a petty social media argument about a girl, between his friend and another young man.
A budding rapper, Jacob is now focusing on cultivating his music career, while working in construction on the side.
‘There’s a lot of the mandem that I know on the streets, [who] could have been footballers, doctors, so many things. They had a lot of things going for them, but due to certain circumstances, not having the money… the opportunities… a lot of them are from single-parent homes.
‘If there was more skills in school, if they taught us plumbing, electrics, how to pay your bills, rent, things like that, I feel like kids would be more reluctant to be in the streets because they’d know how to make money in a legal way.
‘Over the years, as I’ve matured, I’ve realised a lot of it is just about wanting acceptance. I think it stems from just being a young kid that wanted to actually have that love that I wasn’t getting.’
Strange that those would be things you’d need school to teach you, isn’t it? I learned them from family life.
The policeman:
He has been a schools’ officer for the Met for 14 years, delivering workshops to children across east London.
Graeme acknowledges that mistrust of the Met, an institution found in last year’s landmark Casey report to be ‘institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic’, is a huge barrier to building relationships with young people.
‘We know young people a lot of young people don’t like the police,’ Graeme tells me. ‘We have the ability to take away liberties. So I understand there’s that negativity.’
The majority of the students at St Edward’s are Black – a community seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the Met.
‘We do experiences with young people where we switch roles, we get them to put on our kit and say “you be a police officer you do the stop and search”, and they see it from our point of view, and that opens them up to the police a little bit.’
You know, if I was continually butting heads against people who could deprive me of my liberty, I’d stop doing the things that would draw their attention, wouldn’t you?
So what has this ‘deep dive’ really shown us? Over to you, Reader.
