South Yorkshire Police respond to rise in shootings

On Friday evening, a man was shot in the leg in Thrybergh, while on Sunday there was a firearms discharge at an Aston house and another man shot in the leg in Burngreave, Sheffield.

The force says it is taking a "co-ordinated approach" to bring offenders to justice and disrupt the activities of organised crime.

An armed crime team was started in Sheffield as a pilot project in 2020 - and rolled out to cover the whole force area at the end of last year.

Assistant Chief Con Dave Hartley (pictured) said: “Recently you may have seen more information on our channels about firearms discharges and how SYP is tackling them within each district of South Yorkshire. This is purposeful.

“We are not looking to raise fear of crime within our communities, what we want to do is ensure you know what is actually happening in your area and to encourage you to work with us to tackle it.

“We are clearly seeing far too much of this type of criminality and it will not, and cannot be tolerated. While we will react swiftly to safeguard people at risk, and investigate these incidents, often what we lack to bring the offenders to justice is information – and we believe the community may hold it.

“There is no doubt we will tackle this issue, and with every discharge we see, we will seek to flood the area with specialist officers, combing every inch of the crime scenes and working relentlessly to find those responsible.

“What we don’t want to see is innocent people being hurt, and we need to get to those involved before further discharges happen. If you know something, have any information no matter how trivial you think it may be, please get in touch. 

"If you don’t feel comfortable talking directly to the police, you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously – we will get that information and be able to act on it."