A 13-year-old boy is recovering after being blasted in the head with a shotgun – moments after another teenager was shot in broad daylight on a busy London high street.
Police were called just minutes apart to the shootings at two locations in close proximity in High Street, Wealdstone in Harrow, north west London, on Sunday.
Officers were called to High Street at 1.17pm to find a 15-year-old boy had been shot.
Two minutes later, they were alerted by London Ambulance Service about a second victim, aged 13, who had been shot at a different location nearby.
Both boys were taken to hospital with head injuries that are not life-threatening after being hit with a shotgun, a Metropolitan Police spokesman told MailOnline.
Police said they are investigating whether the two incidents are linked, but no arrests have been made and no firearm has been recovered.
Meanwhile, a shopkeeper said the younger boy was ‘lucky to be alive’ and they believe a bullet grazed the back of his head.
Two boys, aged 13 and 15, were shot in broad daylight in Wealdstone High Street in Harrow
A grey adidas sweatshirt with blood stains on the hood lay crumpled on the ground outside a Specsavers store along with a police exhibit number
Palmerston Road, just off Wealdstone High Street, was blocked off with police tape and manned by uniformed officers.
A grey adidas sweatshirt with blood stains on the hood lay crumpled on the ground outside a Specsavers store along with a police exhibit number.
The manager of a betting shop, who did not give his name, said he was passing by on his lunch break and saw people gathered outside Specsavers around a black man on the ground.
He said: ‘He was holding his head down. I could not see his face but could see his white t-shirt was proper covered in blood.
‘He was sitting calmly as the paramedics were looking after him.’
No arrests have been made and no firearm has been recovered, police said
Both boys were taken to hospital and police said they await details of their condition
He described Wealdstone as a ‘kind of rough area and it can be a bit aggressive’.
He added that ‘seeing police around here is just another day’ and he was used to seeing boys ‘just hanging around’ in the street.
A green first aid bag could be seen behind the cordon as forensics officers took photographs and passers-by were diverted from the scene.
Ajay Ramesh Vaghela said police closed a small section of the road by Specsavers.
‘I was going to the gym and saw the police cars there. I asked police what happened and they said they’d been reports of a shooting,’ he told The Mirror.
Police at the junction of Palmerston Road and the A409, following the two shootings
Kebab shop manager Cemalettin SimSek added: ‘I didn’t see anything to do with the shooting because I was working, but then at around 1.30pm I saw loads of police appear in the High Street, too many of them.’
The 13-year-old is the youngest victim following a spate of violent crimes in the capital, as police investigate more than 60 alleged murders so far this year.
Meanwhile, the Bank Holiday violence continued on Sunday night after a 22-year-old sustained gunshot wounds.
The young man was taken to hospital after police were flagged down by a bystander in New Cross Road, Lewisham, shortly before 6.30pm. His injuries are not life-threatening.
Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17 who was shot dead in south London on Saturday evening
It comes after a 17-year-old boy was shot dead in broad daylight near his home in Southwark on Saturday.
Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton – who rapped under the name GB – was discovered with critical injuries on Warham Street after officers were called to reports of gunshots on nearby Cooks Road shortly after 6pm.
Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and London’s Air Ambulance went to the scene, but the teenager was pronounced dead just before 7pm.