Four people have been hospitalised following what is being described as a “drive-by” shooting in the multicultural Brixton area of south London in the early hours of Saturday morning.
According to the BBC, a 25-year-old man remains in life-threatening condition, while 21, 47, and 70-year-old men were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries following a shooting on Coldharbour Lane at around 1 am local time.
A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said: “We treated four patients at the scene. We took two of them to a major trauma centre and the other two patients to a local hospital.”
The head officer for the Metropolitan Police’s investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Allam Bhangoo, described the shooting as an “act of indiscriminate violence”.
“We understand how concerning this incident will be for the local community and want to reassure residents that officers are working at pace to identify those responsible.”
So far police have yet to identify any suspects in the case and have called on witnesses to come forward with any information pertaining to the shooting. They also said that an increased police presence will be deployed to the area.
The shooting comes just days after the U.S. Embassy in London urged Americans in Britain to “exercise increased caution” in the wake of recent attacks targeting Jewish and American targets.
While gun ownership was once commonplace in Britain, it has declined rapidly since the late 1990s following a string of restrictions imposed by the left-wing Labour Party government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, who all but outlawed firearms like handguns from the country.
Despite this, gun crime remains an issue in the country, with 5,103 firearm offences recorded last year in the year up to April of 2025. This included 32 homicides committed with guns, accounting for six per cent of all homicides in the country. However, last year did see a significant decline in firearm offences from the previous year, when 6,449 offences were recorded.