Police have made a series of arrests in early morning raids on homes in the wake of a shooting in the Cheetham Hill area earlier this week.
The Manchester Evening News watched as around 60 officers, some of them armed, swooped on addresses in the narrow terraced streets of Galsworthy Avenue and Huxley Avenue, to execute eight warrants before sunrise.
They battered their way in through several front doors shouting 'police, don't move' before searching the properties for weapons. Now, three men - aged 19, 20, and 21 - are in custody to be questioned on suspicion of offences including possession with intent to supply drugs, possession of an offensive weapon, and possession of class A drugs.
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Police say a large zombie knife, several samurai swords, suspected drug-line phones, and a quantity of class A drugs were recovered from the addresses. The action followed a shooting on Cheetham Hill Road just before 11.25pm on Monday, where it is believed two vehicles were involved in a collision before a firearm was discharged.
No-one was injured but it resulted in stop and search powers put in place under Section 60 of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act until 10am yesterday. The measures allowed the officers patrolling the area to search anyone for offensive weapons or knives.
Investigating officers said they were keen to stress that the shooting is believed to be a targeted attack, and that this morning's raids 'demonstrate our commitment to ensuring such acts of violence don’t escalate between rival groups'.
Detective Inspector Paul Crompton, of GMP's North Manchester division, said: "Today's robust response to Monday night's shooting demonstrates our zero-tolerance to incidents like this happening on the streets of our city. A great deal of hard work continues to go on to ensure that we maintain what has been a drastic downward trend in firearms discharges in the north of Manchester, and we are absolutely determined to not relent in our commitment to keeping people safe.
"Our enquiries into Monday's incident continue at pace and I want today to send a clear message to anyone involved in this incident that if you're involved in organised crime and you are engaging in violence in our communities then we will need no encouragement to come through your door and bring you to custody to speak to you.
"While our investigation has lots of lines of enquiry for us to explore, and our hunt for the weapon used continues, our action this morning is clear that we are keen to do whatever we can to disrupt criminality; targeting suspects, illicit assets, weapons and anything that may be fuelling this criminality such as drugs.
"We've already had information from the public that has aided us in recovering a vehicle we suspect of being involved in the incident which we now have taken for forensic analysis - I appeal to anyone that may know something about what has happened or who was involved to contact us and help progress our investigation."
Any witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage is asking to get in touch by calling 0161 856 1146 or report it online at www.gmp.police.uk. Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
