A 12-year-old boy is in a serious condition after being shot in Huddersfield.
West Yorkshire police officers were called to a report of a disturbance at Northfield Hall community centre at 7.15pm on Tuesday.
The boy is in hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries. A police cordon is in place at the scene.
Shortly after the shooting, a 13-year-old boy is believed to have been threatened by a man carrying an unknown weapon, according to the force. The teenager escaped unscathed but sustained a minor injury after falling over as he fled.
Detectives are appealing for information. The suspects are believed to have fled the scene in a BMW, which was later found burned in the Huddersfield area.
A parent who was in the centre at the time told YorkshireLive: “My daughter was in there doing gymnastics at the time. It was very frightening for us parents while the police decided it was safe for them to come out.”
Barry Sheerman, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Huddersfield, said the town had a problem with county lines drug dealers using children to transport their drugs. “There is a particular problem here, like many other small towns, of county lines drug dealers using young kids to transport their drugs and I am sick to death that the drug dealers seem to be able to operate with apparent immunity.”
Although Sheerman did not link this specific case to drugs he said that he had written to Ch Supt Julie Sykes and called for a zero-tolerance policy. “The police need more resources and power to tackle this problem. People with children are frightened of letting them out of the house because they will be taken in by drug traffickers. This has to be stopped,” he said.
DCI Vanessa Rolfe said: “This level of violence is clearly a cause for concern, especially given the age of the victim and that it happened at a community centre. Extensive inquiries are under way by a team of specialist detectives in the homicide and major inquiry team.
“Our local neighbourhood policing teams will be maintaining a visible policing presence to offer reassurance to communities. I would appeal for anyone who witnessed the incident or anyone who has any information to contact officers.
“Those involved showed no regard for the public’s safety and it is imperative that anyone with information on who carried out this attack contacts police.”
Anyone with information should contact police on 101. Information can also be passed anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
