Low-key community in media spotlight

By Joe Boyle
BBC News

Residents of a quiet east London neighbourhood looked on as vanloads of police and journalists poured into their community following the police shooting of a terror suspect.

The neighbourhood was deluged by journalists

Most of the activity centred on Katherine Road, a narrow street in Forest Gate lined with convenience stores and estate agents.

The local council is considering double red lines to ease the congestion. On Friday morning, they must have felt the need was more pressing than usual.

Heavy traffic squeezed through a bottleneck caused by police vans and TV trucks carrying the hardware to broadcast breaking news across the globe.

Officers had shot and injured a terror suspect in the early hours of the morning in a raid on a house in Lansdown Road - adjacent to Katherine Road.

A police cordon kept prying eyes away from the scene of the shooting, pushing journalists and dozens of local residents on to the gridlocked main road.

'Close-knit'

As each resident passed by, reporters swooped, desperate to glean any tit-bit of information about the early morning police raid that might be on offer.

But while passers-by happily expanded on the community spirit and togetherness of the area, they gave scant information about the morning's events.

Sharaf Mahmood (L) and Usman Naeem say the area is peaceful

"This is a peaceful, close-knit community. A thriving community with people of all ethnic backgrounds," said 22-year-old Sharaf Mahmood.

"We have never seen anything like this before. There are small problems, with drugs and with burglaries, but generally it is a really quiet area, and Lansdown is the quietest street."

Mr Mahmood does have a vested interest in praising the area - he is a Labour councillor for the ward, one of the youngest councillors in Britain.

But his enthusiasm is shared by Usman Naeem, also 22. The pair were both born and brought up in Forest Gate.

Mr Naeem said the last serious incident he could remember in the area was "two or three years ago, when a dead body was found", but he was sketchy on the details.

Mr Naeem, studying for a PhD in intelligence systems, is more interested in talking about his university course than crime in his neighbourhood.

'I'm on the telly'

Further down the road, scores of journalists were pressing passers-by for information, but found that people were only able to relay details of stories from BBC News 24 or Sky News.

Local residents gathered to discuss the morning's events

Gathering teenagers made calls on their mobile phones, excitedly telling friends that they were "on the telly".

But not everyone was so euphoric. One nearby estate agent commented that the area was "OK in the daytime, but you wouldn't want to walk around at night".

And Ferris Linsday, a 47-year-old teacher, was interviewed by several news crews. He told them he remembered another raid on Lansdown Road only six or seven months ago.

The Met Police were quick to make clear that any operation in the area in the past had no connection to this raid.

Community relations

The general high spirits of those who had gathered was only a brief distraction from the main story - the shooting of a 23-year-old man suspected of trying to carry out acts of terrorism.

When the media jamboree rolls out, up Katherine Road, away from the scene of the shooting, the real clean-up job will begin for community leaders.

Making sure relations between the police and young people in the area do not break down could be their main task.

Mr Mahmood commented that the police have a difficult job in the area, and they generally do it very well. But he added: "This event, I'm sure, is going to have a ripple effect."