A man was shot by armed police officers during a dawn raid in Birmingham this morning.
A police team burst into the house in the Edgbaston area of the city at 5am this morning before the man was shot in the arm. He was taken to hospital and his injuries are not said to be life-threatening.
Six people were arrested and a gun was found, which is now being examined by firearms experts.
The shooting unfolding during a raid on a flat in this road in Birmingham this morning
Police search the scene where a suspect was shot in the arm by armed officers this morning
Locals said the area had been tense since the killing of Anthony Sargeant, known as ‘The King of Lee Bank’, last month.
One resident said: ‘This is Five Ways, this is what happens. The streets are hot right now after the ‘King of Lee Bank’ murder.’
There is no suggestion from police that the raid is linked to Mr Sargeant’s shooting.
Another local resident added: ‘I live on the estate. It was a nightmare from about 5am.
‘Armed police arrested some people – there were dogs and riot vans everywhere and I’ve just had to sign in and at a checkpoint just to take my son to school.’
A West Midlands Police spokesman said: ‘Six people have been arrested on suspicion of firearms offences and a man shot by armed officers after West Midlands Police executed a dawn raid in Birmingham today.
‘Officers forced entry to the house in Shepherds Gardens, Edgbaston, at around 5am looking for a man wanted in connection with a firearms offence.
‘Four men and two women were arrested during the pre-planned operation and a firearm was recovered; it has been seized for forensic examination.
‘Another man at the address was shot by police during the warrant and has been taken to hospital with an arm injury. It is not believed to be life threatening.’
Locals said the area had been tense since a local rapper was killed nearby last month
The police raid took place less than a mile from where rapper Anthony Sargeant, known as the King of Lee Bank, was gunned down last month. There is nothing to suggest the raid was linked to that shooting. Mr Sargeant is pictured with his eight children
Those arrested – men aged 21, 35, 45 and 52, and women aged 59 and 64 – were all from Birmingham and remain in police custody.
A spokesman for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said: ‘We are investigating the non-fatal shooting of a man by West Midlands Police in Edgbaston, Birmingham this morning.
‘The incident happened at around 5am at a property in Shepherds Gardens during a pre-planned police operation.
‘IOPC investigators have been deployed to the scene and the police post incident procedures.’
Violence soars in Birmingham as gun crime rates top even London
Soaring levels of violence in Birmingham have seen gun crime rates rise above those of London.
By the beginning of last month, there had been 33 homicides in the city this year alone, with over 25 gun crimes per 100,000 people, higher than in London.
The city’s streets have seen 12 stabbings, with mother and daughter killed in Solihull the victims of one of the most shocking recent crimes.
Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem were stabbed to death in August
Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem were knifed to death on Bank Holiday weekend in August, and their alleged killer was arrested after a nationwide manhunt.
The city’s Birmingham Mail newspaper reported that 10 other killings happened within seven days of the mother and daughter’s stabbing.
Knive murders in the West Midlands have doubled in the last three years, and the number of people caught with a knife has more than doubled to 1,800 last year.
Last month, a teenage boy was brutally kicked to the floor and knifed in the back in Handsworth Park.
Less than 48 hours later, a biker was stabbed in a rush hour attack in Weoley Castle.
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