2 shot at Notting Hill Carnival

2007-08-28 07:26

London - London's Metropolitan Police were on Tuesday investigating the shootings of two teenagers, as well as a stabbing, on the final day of the Notting Hill Carnival.

The incidents marred what police described as a mostly peaceful carnival - Europe's biggest street festival - and comes a recent set of high-profile shootings of teenagers.

One of the two youths shot was a 17-year-old found by police, bleeding from his shoulder, who were answering reports of shots being fired in the Notting Hill area at around 19:30 (1830 GMT) on Monday.

Police have made an arrest in connection with the shooting of the boy, who has not yet been identified.

At about 21:00, a 14-year-old boy, also unidentified, was shot in the leg at the carnival, though it is believed he will be released from hospital later on Tuesday.

No one has yet been arrested in connection with that shooting.

Stabbing

Also in the area of the carnival, a man in his 20s was stabbed, though his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

The festival was originally launched in 1959 by post-World War II immigrants from what were then Britain's Caribbean colonies, as a community act of defiance following ugly race riots the year before.

It was held in various parts of London before settling permanently in Notting Hill in 1964.

The shootings come just days after 11-year-old Rhys Jones was fatally shot in the neck in a pub car park, an incident which sparked much soul-searching in his home town of Liverpool and across Britain over the apparent rise of gun crime.

- AFP