Kennington hero arrests drug dealer, US Embassy info. and art/photography (general update)

The top story this morning concerns a local chap, Charlie Skinner, who contacted the police to inform them about a local drug dealer who'd moved in next door.  Instead of keeping a log, as the police advised, he bravely(?) posed as a drug dealer, entered the flat next door, fought of two of the drug dealers' "henchmen" and performed a citizens' arrest, putting the drug-dealer in a headlock until the police arrived.  Unsurprisingly, police found crystal meth (a popular drug in Vauxhall) in the flat  (This all took place on March 13th, so it perhaps has escaped Daily Mail coverage on account of the impending court case.)  The drug dealer was jailed for six years on Monday.  Various Tweeters have been asking "where" in Kennington this took place.  My best guess is that it was somewhere close to Kennington Park, but I'd rather not say more on account of the family's safety.  I really can't decide whether the chap in question was very brave, or somewhat mad, but he achieved the desired effect somewhat more quickly than the "keep a log" suggestions from the police.  Only, umm, don't try this at home, unless you're a "south London boy" who can "look after yourself" or you might y'know, be stabbed or shot or something!  There's an additional report in The Evening Standard.

The US State department showed off plans for their embassy in Battersea to a crowd of US architects late last week.  There's an excellent article about it here.  What hasn't been noted prior to now is that the State Department were tasked with finding the "smallest site, that met our needs, that we could afford."  Shows that they must really love the idea of being based in Vauxhall, eh? :)  Apparently, the building is designed to show off the three American virtues of transparency, openness and equality, except that, erm, it has to be utterly impenetrable.  Difficult to do, unless you're allowed to build your own moat, I suppose!  What's not clear, when they speak about "public realm" and the park outside the building is whether they mean "Vauxhall public" or "the American public that happen to work inside the building".  I like the idea of a new park over there, but not sure I want to be relaxing with friends under the watchful eye of the machine-gun toting police.

If you're interested in art, there's an exhibition by Lisa Yuskavage in the Greengrassi/Corvi Mori art gallery (1a Kempsford Road, SE11) which feature slightly odd images of the female form/psyche with a better review here.  Additionally, the Camera Club in Bowden Street are digging Politicians from the 1970s out of their archives (7th June - 25th June).  More info about the exhibition is on the Kennington Association blog.

Ashley Kemete death in Kennington

I don't have any further news on Ashley Kemete's death in Kennington, which is unusual as I was hoping that due to the number of witnesses, somebody/people might have been taken in for questioning by now. The news hasn't entirely sunk in with me yet. I know that violent crime happens all over London (this is the 5th? violent death since I started the blog), but there has been nothing in SE11 (thank goodness) for over a year, especially not gun crime.

An anonymous comment left on this blog notes:

The location of the shooting is a cul-de-sac that separates Kennings and Penwith Manor Estates. Poorly-lit and with no CCTV, it's a gift to local dealers servicing the demand from local pubs and elsewhere. Whether there are 5 gangs in the immediate location, there is a drug problem that nice parts of Kennington don't see. Police have now cleared off, and there's a shrine at the spot where the shooting took place, so it appears there's something to the gang link.

I'm not clear on how a shrine points to the gang link, but I wish it didn't take deaths for poorly-lit, unobserved alleyway areas to be brought to public(?) or council (?) attention. Of course, that presumes that somebody is paying attention at all. I've often used that particular cut through from Kennington tube station (and will continue to do so), but I admit that I tend to use it before dark, because it sometimes does involve walking past groups of youths. I refuse to be intimidated by groups of people, but I can see why some people might not like it.

I've been doing a little questioning of the "5 gangs" in the area figure, quoted by the unnamed source. It seems that two things are at issue:

a) What exactly "this area" refers to. The local estate? (which is what I was presuming). Kennington? Kennington and Oval? Kennington and Vauxhall? Further out to encompass Camberwell, Peckham and Brixton, as well as Kennington? I was thinking that 5 gangs sounded too high for the local estate. However...

b) The guy who runs The Assha Project blog (a blog about a gang conflict mediation programme in Tower Hamlets) has pointed out to me that the unnamed neigbour might have been using a wider definition of "gang" than I was anticipating. I was using "gang" to refer to a group of people that routinely hang around together with some criminal intent. I wouldn't use the word "gang" just to describe some friends who hang around on the street, with no criminal intent. I realise that there is a fine line (especially because groups comprise some people who might have some criminal intent, and others who might not), but it does seem that the former involves illegal elements, whereas the latter is actually still legal. A group of friends who hang around on street corners might be disapproved of by some UK citizens, but I figure that freedom to congregate peaceably hasn't been made illegal yet. If the unnamed neighbour is using the word "gang" in this looser sense, then I concede that there may well be 5 gangs on that particular local estate.

One issue that I really appreciate the anonymous poster commenting on is drug supplies to local pubs (and I believe that Camila Batmanghelidjh brought this up in one of my favourite interviews for the BBC) when she said:

Adults - it's y'know, adults - some people who work in the city running crack dens y'know, to make extra money. And it blows my mind, because the people who ring the 'phones of my kids are city workers, who ring for their drugs. And yet they're the same people who judge these children y'know? But they keep the drug trade going.

And I was thinking that a lot of libertarian type people who don't object to taking drugs, or having friends who take drugs, might not think about the people whose hands the drugs pass through... Theoretically, in one guise, I'd be one of those people who said something like, "well, if people choose to take drugs, and they're not harming anybody else, then it doesn't bother me that they're doing something illegal". But it seems that drug-taking is harming other people, just not the people actually taking the substances in question. (This of course, raises more questions about whether any drugs should be illegal?)

Being that Vauxhall, and its numerous gay clubs are around the corner, continually fueled by newer and more ingenious ways to get high, it can't be an accident that we'll end up with shootings in the area as well. The whole supply and demand chain is on our doorsteps.