Traffic in Finsbury Park

ActionVerb

Does anyone know why there is ridiculous traffic around Finsbury Park at the moment? In particular Fonthill Rd is chocka and the constant beeping of the horns and loud music from car stereos is stopping me from falling asleep. Scum. Sub-human scum.

It's not even usually this bad when Arsenal play. First thought that it's Emirates related, but can't find any listings and they've got a home game tomorrow, so wouldn't have thought they had a big event..

Bridget

Police have cordoned off the area under the bridge at Finsbury park so people are driving around and cutting through down Fonthil road.

ActionVerb

Ah, thank you, that would explain the frequent police sirens too. The traffic light at Fonthill Rd & Upper Tollington isn't particularly great at the best of times. We need those New York style 'Illegal to sound the horn' signs.

The question is then what happened under bridge? I'm too lazy to go and find out for myself.

xxxxxxx

Unfortunately we heard on the radio that a 19 year old boy was stabbed and killed just outside Finsbury Park tube under that tunnel on Seven Sisters Road.

ADGS

Walking past the edge of the cordon, I asked a policewoman what had happened. "There's been an incident", she replied, helpfully restating my question rather than providing any additional information.

dion

That is what the policewoman said to me too!

ADGS

It's probably for the best that I was too drunk to register the tautology until I was 20 feet up Fonthill Road, or I would have got into a discussion of the purpose of language with her, and it probably would not have ended well.

MazzyJ70

Was on 29 back from Camden last night just before midnight and got off the bus just by the station - there was blood at the entrance to the tunnel and apparently it was cordoned off just after I walked through to get to the bus station.

Ali

Road Closure has just been on the Radio traffic news

andy

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7702079/Polish-teenager-stabbed-to-death-while-protecting-his-girlfriend.html>; Looks like a random attack on a bus. Nasty.

ADGS

Oh, that's awful. When I heard 'teenager stabbed' I just assumed gang-on-gang and mainly got annoyed about the transport disruption, but random-nutter-on-bus...that's the sort of crime I can get upset about.

checkski

You don't get upset by gang stabbings, ADGS? Shame on you.

ADGS

I'm with John Stuart Mill when it comes to liberty. If people want to be in gangs and do gangy things to each other, I don't see it's any business of the law's to intervene unless they start bothering civilians. Yes, I know there's a line of thinking which says that people have to join a gang for security, but I don't buy it, not least because I know too many London teenagers who manage to avoid such nonsense entirely with no apparent effort.

krappyrubsnif

It can be (and quite often is) gang-on-innocent person attacks, ie lone guy who happens to be in the wrong area or with the wrong person gets attacked because he's known to be from somewhere else, a different school or a different group.

is is real if you are a 12-16 year old. I know several teenagers who are not in gangs but will not stray outside the safety of their own area.

Marquis

ADGS - I'm with the King on questions like this: People don't you understand, And a momma cries, and all that.

ADGS

Nick Cave sang it better.

And I would like to emphasise that I only expressed a lack of concern about gang-on-gang violence. Gang-on-innocent is obviously another matter entirely.

On Friday I met a couple of teenage friends from far SE London in King's Cross. If they were taking their lives in their hands, it really didn't show in their manner.
(Then again, I also know plenty of grown-ups who think that walking across Harringay station bridge is an act of suicidal bravado and that Highbury Fields by night is a place beyond the reach of law and decency)

miss annie

Highbury Fields has always been bandit country, since the days of the highwaymen and probably before that - it's not a recent phenomenon.

Oh, and no one sings 'In the Ghetto' better than Elvis!

andy

I don't think you can put this crime in the same category as the teen-on-teen "gang-related" crimes. This looks like an nasty, unprovoked attack on a bus. The fact that the victim was a teenager is a bit of a red herring.

Siolae

It was a horrible, terrible attack. Not gang related in any way. I know some of the kids involved. They were trying to get away when the boy was stabbed.

ADGS

Andy: agreed, absolutely. It may have got mislaid somewhere in amongst the plugging Mill and Cave, but what I was trying to say originally was that I was that I was initially misled by that exact red herring.