The charity Crimestoppers has launched a campaign to combat a rise in gun crime in Merseyside.
Last week 44-year-old Thomas Baker was killed as he returned to his car outside a gym in the Old Swan area of Liverpool. He was the third man to have been shot dead in Merseyside since April 2016.
In that nine-month period there have been 77 firearm discharges in the region, 28 of which resulted in non-fatal injuries, compared with 60 discharges, two deaths and 11 injuries in the whole of the previous year.
On Thursday a van with a digital screen broadcasting “emotive imagery” will drive through hotspot areas including Speke, Bootle, Norris Green, Wavertree and Old Swan. There will also be targeted social media advertising.
Crimestoppers’ regional manager Gary Murray said: “We want to appeal to local people to tell us who is responsible for these crimes, without fear of repercussion, but we also need to find out where these guns are being stored so that the police can make our streets safer.
“We know that picking up the phone or logging on to our site is probably one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. But in 28 years, we have never broken our promise to the public that those who contact us will always remain anonymous.”
The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show there were 7,866 offences in which firearms were involved in the year ending March 2015, up 2% on the previous year – the first increase in gun crime in 10 years.
Of the 7,866 offences, 19 involved fatalities – 10 fewer than the previous year and the lowest since the data series began in 1969.
At the end of December police in West Yorkshire expressed concern about a rise in gun violence in their region, after three unrelated incidents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Last week 19-year-old Raheem Wilks, a brother of the Leeds United under-23 player Mallik Wilks, was shot dead outside a barber shop in the Harehills area of Leeds.
