LIVERPOOL: On patrol on the streets menaced by the hoodies and yobs

On patrol on the streets menaced by the hoodies and yobs

* SHOW your support for the war on gun crime - sign our petition today

GANGS of youths hang around a street corner waving brazenly as the police go past.

Dressed in uniform tracksuits and trainers the lads are on almost first name terms with the officers inside the big yellow van.

They have been stopped so many times.

But when the marked police wagons get further down the road the waves turn to V-signs.

This is repeated everywhere the police go around the twisty estates of north Liverpool.

Welcome to a typical Friday night out on patrol in Croxteth and Norris Green.

Friday nights for the anti-gun, anti-gang Matrix team are nothing new.

They are not a knee-jerk reaction to the murder of Rhys Jones.

For the past two years these officers have been patrolling the same streets night after night, letting the local troublemakers know they are never very far away.

Tonight the ECHO is with them.

It is about targeting known hot-spots and letting the community see the police out on their streets.

And it is about putting pressure on the gun criminals operating in north Liverpool.

Within five minutes of starting out, the van, emblazoned with Merseyside Police and Matrix logos, makes its first stop.

The Western Approaches, probably Croxteth’s most infamous pub, has the dubious honour of being first on the hit list.

Seven officers decamp from the van and go in through the front door. Thirty seconds later, they are back out.

There’s nothing to see and no-one in particular inside. But just by showing their presence the police are making a point.

The Lobster, a former hang-out for the Croxteth Crew, and Rourkes Tavern, in Norris Green, receive similar visits.

From there the team heads into Norris Green, along Carr Lane and into the heart of the estates.

Since police put a Section 60 order in place across the bordering neighbourhoods, they have the power to stop and search anyone they choose for drugs or weapons.

On Stalifield Avenue a large group are out on the street and in the front garden of a run-down house.

“We’re just having a smoke. You’re not allowed to smoke inside. It’s the law, you know,” chirps one as he is padded down by an officer.

As, one by one, the rest are all searched, younger kids on bikes crowd around.

Some try, pitifully, to show off by riding in circles in the road almost daring the police to go over and have a word.

Everyone who is stopped and searched has their details taken and is given a slip to say why they were stopped and what, if anything, was found.

As the final few are sent on their way a call comes over the radio saying shots have been fired at a nearby house with an air rifle.

The offenders are still thought to be in the area and the blue lights flash as the van dashes toward the scene.

A PC on routine patrol is already at the house so the Matrix team go looking for the suspects.

Further down the road, in Felmersham Avenue, a group of between eight and 10 young men congregate on the corner.

Some of the them fit the description and the van screeches to a halt and the area is searched.

Across the road are newly built football pitches, but these lads would rather hang around doing nothing than kick a football about.

They are all searched, questioned and eventually let go.

One man wearing a tracksuit is also collared.

But he is a kitchen-fitter making his way home after a hard day’s graft.

As he walks off he says: “I’m going to have to get some new work clothes if I look like one of them lot.”

One road lined with boarded up houses leads to the next and eventually the patrol arrives in Croxteth.

Now it is dark and in the middle of the road, riding head-on towards the police van, is the classic “hoodie”.

Mid-to-late teens, black hooded top with the hood pulled over his skinhead, black gloves, black tracksuit, black trainers, even a black mountain bike.

He doesn’t flinch at the sight of a giant yellow van bearing down on him and he too is stopped.

Detective Superintendent Geoff Sloane, leading the disruption operation, said: “The gloves are normally a give away. Why do you need gloves on a warm night like tonight? What’s he hiding or what doesn’t he want his fingerprints on?”

But this lad, like all the others tonight, has no weapons or drugs on him and after a bit of pavement interrogation, is waved on.

The night turns a blank for police. They find no weapons, no drugs and no-one gets shot. But that is the way they want it.

Mr Sloane added: “The majority of people know what we are doing and are fine with it. It is only a few who see it as harassing the kids or picking on people.

“Everyone should know we are only doing this to make them safer.”

Sign our petition to stop nightmare of gun crime

HUNDREDS of readers have already signed the ECHO petition to show Downing Street the strength of feeling against gun crime on Merseyside.

Just hours after hitting the streets yesterday more than 150 people put their name to the petition being handed to prime minister Gordon Brown.

And by today, as people came home from work and picked up their ECHO and read our call for action, that number had swelled.

Add your name to the on-line petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/LiverpoolUnites/.

You can also fill in the coupon over the page and send it to us.

We will take every single voucher down to Parliament and put them on the decision-makers’ desks.

By signing the petition, and by wearing your purple ribbon, you are showing your support for our Liverpool Unites campaign.

The ECHO is calling on the people of the city, and those further afield, to support our campaign calling for legislative changes to laws surrounding gun and gang violence.

The campaign was launched after the murder of 11-year-old Croxteth Park schoolboy Rhys Jones.

We call on the government to:

Provide 1,000 more police officers for Merseyside.

Deliver a minimum sentence of 10 years for illegal possession of a firearm.

Provide more resources for the witness protection programme, to give greater confidence to those prepared to come forward.

Implement controls to make it much harder for criminals to acquire guns or re-commission decommissioned weapons.

* SHOW your support for the war on gun crime - sign our petition today

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2007/10/04/on-patrol-on-the-streets-menaced-by-the-hoodies-and-yobs-100252-19892160/