Gun crime claims yet another victim as boys' killers hunted

Fresh violence erupted in London and Manchester yesterday as armed police tried to stop a spate of shootings in the past fortnight from escalating further.

The killing of a man in his twenties in south London intensified fears about gun crime following three fatal shootings of teenagers. The Government was in crisis talks this weekend as it sought to find ways to bring an end to the gang violence.

The latest victim was found in a Fiat Punto in Homerton High Street, Hackney, with gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead in hospital. Two men were seen running from the scene towards Digby Road. Homerton High Street was still cordoned off last night. The investigation is being led by the Metropolitan Police's black-on-black gun crime unit, Operation Trident.

In Manchester's Moss Side and Longsight areas, there were two further gun attacks on Friday night and Saturday morning. In the first, a man, 18, was shot in the back in Raby Street, Moss Side, at 9pm. His injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. Raby Street is just yards from Broadfield Park, where 15-year-old Jessie James was shot three times and killed while riding his mountain bike on 9 September.

Hours after the shooting in Raby Street, at 2.15am on Saturday, two men were wounded in a drive-by shooting when gunmen targeted the car they were in at traffic lights on Stockport Road in Longsight. A 19-year-old man was hit in his arm and a 27-year-old man in his back.

Police said the occupants of a silver Mercedes seen in the area at the time may have been responsible for the shooting. The two shootings were not thought to be linked. "This is a busy thoroughfare," said Detective Inspector Brian King, of Greater Manchester Police, of the second incident. "It's highly likely that this incident was witnessed by members of the public."

In south London, three teenage boys have been killed recently. Billy Cox, 15, was found dying by his 13-year-old sister on Wednesday at their home in Clapham, minutes after he had been shot in the chest. That murder followed the shooting in Peckham of Michael Dosunmu, 15, in his bedroom on 6 February. Three days earlier, James Smartt-Ford, 16, had been gunned down at Streatham Ice Rink.

The Saturday-morning murder is not currently being linked to the earlier killings, police said.

But a special investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that the south London shootings are the result of a drugs turf war caused by the jailing of two key players involved in distributing cocaine.

The Government is considering forcing parents of children at risk of slipping into gang culture to attend parenting classes. The summit also discussed a crackdown on firearms.