Gangs, Guns, and the Peace of God

Wood Green, London. Friday, 10 July, 2015. It’s almost a quarter to six in the evening of a warm and sunny day. Erdogan Guzel sits relaxing outside the “Brothers Bakery”, a shop he co-owns, if the name doesn’t give it away, with his brother. Guzel had moved to London from Turkey to try and make a better life for his family and had had the bakery for a couple of years. On this particular afternoon, he is drinking coffee and talking with a few friends as the rush hour crowd walks by.

A face in that crowd is 51 year old Sonya Gencheva. Originally from Bulgaria, she arrived in London last month to join her husband Nikolay and to work as a cleaner. She is loving her new life in London and has had a good day with her 34 year old daughter, Maya. They are almost home after a shopping trip.  

Guzel never finished his coffee and conversation, and Gencheva still hasn’t made it home. In a few short minutes, one lay dead on the pavement while the other was critically injured a few feet away as frantic passers-by desperately tried to slow her bleeding with tissues.

Earlier this week, I walked the few minutes from where I live to the crime-scene to find an eyewitness who would tell me what happened. The shop-keeper next door to the shuttered bakery was reluctant to say anything to me at first, but was easily persuaded. According to him, a group of young men had been hanging around on the sidewalk in the direction of Wood Green. The group scattered when one of several cars on the road pulled up and a man pointed what looked like a machine gun from a lowered window. The car pursued and the armed man began spraying bullets, as bystanders took cover and people in the shop hid behind the counter. The evidence as it was shown to me indicates that the gunman was wielding a high powered (and perhaps somewhat difficult to control) semi-automatic weapon in a moving vehicle and was not particularly concerned with taking aim: I noticed bullet holes in places ranging from inches off the ground to seven or eight feet up, on both sides of the shop.

When I heard that a Turkish man was one of the victims, my first thought was that it was connected to Turkish organised crime in the area: in 2012 for example, a Turkish gang boss was shot in the neck at close range while sitting inside his car outside the nearby Turnpike Lane Underground station. Either Guzel was into more than baking bread, or he was mistaken for someone else. But news reports said he was an innocent bystander, and the shopkeeper was clear that the gunman, and his intended targets were not Turkish, but appeared to be Afro-Caribbean. That detail also ruled out a local Albanian drug gang I’ve had dealings with, RAG (Real Albanian Gangsters) and its affiliate YAG (Young Albanian Gunnerz).  I also crossed TPL, another gang I have given some personal attention, off my list: this amalgamation of some members from the NLS (North London Somalians) and YAG gangs operates mainly in the area around Turnpike Lane Underground Station, at the other end of Wood Green from where the shooting occurred.

I asked the shopkeeper what the word on the street was as to who was responsible. He said “Wood Green boys and Hornsey boys”. That would make sense. Members of the Wood Green MOB (Money Over Bitches) and Hornsey Grey Gang are largely either from the West Indies or have West Indian roots and they have been engaged in an aggressive turf war for the control of Wood Green for a while. In 2011, my brother Regan was the main witness to an attempted murder in which a young man caught up in this dispute was chased down and brutally stabbed in broad daylight just off of Wood Green High Road. I know young black males who for no reason than their age and the colour of their skin have been singled out by one gang’s members as possibly belonging to the other gang. The son of a lady in my church has moved over a hundred miles out of the city to the Midlands, primarily to get away from it all. 

Precise details have not yet been divulged by the police, but since my talk with the shopkeeper, nine arrests have been made. Six were arrested on charges of murder or conspiracy to murder as they tried to leave the country from Gatwick airport – four males aged 16, 16, 20, and 25 and two females aged 21 and 61. Three more males were arrested in Hornsey, aged 23, 26, and 55.

If anyone has bothered to read this far, you know that the place where I live and serve has some serious issues. You might even have figured out that I might have a more up close and personal knowledge of these issues than the next guy. There's no need point out to me the things that blight an area that otherwise has much to offer. I can see the mountain of rubbish bags on the street corner and the litter that collects on the sidewalks. I have noticed the pools of urine in alley alcoves, the animal and human excrement along the path, and the vomit some drunk expelled onto the pavement. I can hear the sound of sirens blaring, of obscenities flying, of men shouting, women screaming, immature students cackling, kids crying, and the party music from somewhere down the road just loud enough to keep a person awake at 1 am. I have looked into people’s eyes and seen their sadness, heartache, pain, and desperation, their anger and their lust. I know about the High Road scammers, gamblers, beggars, and dealers, the addicts, prostitutes, paranoids, and self-harmers.  And the gangsters. Of course, these are all a part of the deeper problem of humanity's sinful rebellion against God and his design.

So yeah…Wood Green has its issues. But unless you live here or have demonstrated a genuine care for and investment in its people, let me be the one to say it. Otherwise I’ll just take it as you dissing my home. Prayer will do me and my area a lot more good than patronising comments. There are things I definitely do not like about Wood Green and its people. But I love Wood Green and its people. I can see the problems, and am working in both the spiritual and civil spheres of life toward solutions. Some people cannot leave the area fast enough. For me, the reasons they give for leaving are reasons why I should stay. And frankly, I am not worried about it.

I am at times amused, at other times frustrated, by people's fixation on what does and does not make them feel safe. Since guns are involved in the story I have related, take them for example. For a British person, the idea of a land with 'gun rights' and carry permits like the USA is often a nightmare, and I have heard more than one person express how unsafe being in such a place would make them feel. I do not feel unsafe around guns or people who carry them. I know how to load, handle, and discharge handguns, rifles, and shotguns and have done so, and for someone who has not made consistent use of them, I am not a bad shot. I have no strong feelings against guns as inanimate objects that have legitimate purposes but I am against their dangerously uncontrolled availability and the people who misuse them. I also do not buy the myth that an armed society is necessarily a polite society - I would sooner say it is nervous, timid, and insecure. But I do not feel unsafe because of the presence of guns. 

Similarly, I do not in any way feel unsafe because of the absence of guns. "Wouldn't it be nice if you could have a gun, you know for protection?", a well meaning individual might ask. I see nothing nice about feeling I have to tote a firearm with me wherever I go and if I lived in a place where carry permits were allowed, would not avail myself of the privilege. "Well, surely they would allow a taser, knife, or at least some pepper spray there?" Nope, all of those are illegal to carry in London and I don't mind in any way, shape, form, or fashion. "Well I just would feel a whole lot safer if I or someone close to me was carrying a gun." Then you are an idolater. Have guns if you can and will, but have faith in God who protects even if you can't and won't. Furthermore, since we're being honest, I find it particularly ignorant of American Christians to publicly boast about their firearms and am weary of social media "gun and God" posts where pictures are uploaded of a firearm next to a Bible while pathetic attempts are bizarrely made to defend gun use from the Scriptures. In that I see not so much a celebration of freedom and a promotion of responsible gun-handling as I do an insecure, naive, and narcissistic attempt to impress sycophantic good old boys with misguided machismo. There was a time when real men didn't carry a gun, even if they could: they didn't have to. "You're just envious", someone says. Not at all. My assurance of safety is not in a weapon but in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ who said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (John 14:27). Christian gun owners of America and elsewhere: note that Jesus says "my PEACE" not "my PIECE I give to you". This is a peace that says, with the early Methodist preacher George Whitefield, "We are immortal until our work on earth is done." It is this kind of peace that I, my church, and my area needs: peace from the God of peace who guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). 

There's a reason that peace is a commonly arising theme in my preaching and writing. It is because I am at war, and long for peace. I am at war for the peace of my city (Jeremiah 29:7). I fight so much as is possible to be at peace with all men (Romans 12:18). I strive for peace among my brothers and sisters in the Lord as we pursue Christ-likeness (Hebrews 12:14). In this warring, fighting, and striving, I already know and enjoy great peace with the Lord and from the Lord in myself. Wood Green is not known for its safety, but I do not feel unsafe. It might not have the reputation of a prosperous area, but all my needs are provided. It might not be a particularly healthy environment, but the Lord is my strength and he sustains my life. God has appointed the time of my death and I cannot by worrying add one day to that time. Curious I may be - when I will die, where, how, and who will be with me. But concerned? I am not, only that I might love and serve God faithfully where he has called me and exalt the name of Christ in life and death.