…so if you're watching this documentary right now
the truth of the situation is it's been pirated
you're not meant to be watching, but it's so important that everybody
gets to watch this thing we're giving it out
Ssh! Don't tell anybody.
One!
To everybody that's about to watch, make sure you pass it on
make sure the man next to you watches, make sure he watches
make sure everybody watches make sure the message gets out
-Free the knowledge -you understand: the message
-Free the knowledge -it's like my brother says,
be free-minded, think for yourself, don't get caught up in rubbish
Peace
When I first started this movement, I told Adie about it
he was skeptical but he says to me "if you can set the one order, set it"
so I'm still pushin', and, like, now you ain't here bruv,
it makes it even more real. We ain't promised tomorrow...
so, let's make the most of today. Rest in peace Adie Williams
-Rest in peace - Adam Williams -Rest in peace - Adam Williams
-brother from another mother, it's my family, that is -One.
Everyone's walking around casual, like, like zombies, but...
There's some fucked-up shit going on, man.
You look around at everyone and everyone's just normal, like.
Go home, read the papers, watch the news,
kick back, have a cup of tea
and get back up to do the same shit again.
No one ain't got a passion for this thing, like me.
On the streets of Birmingham...
Tonight, another shooting, another victim.
Probably going on about 15 years now,
this beef in Birmingham's been going on,
between Burgers and Johnsons.
Three fatal shootings in as many weeks.
Birmingham now has the highest concentration of gun crime
in the country,
with three serious gun crime incidents here every single day.
The Burgers, they're the Handsworth guys, innit?
And Johnnies are Aston.
These are the two notorious gangs in Birmingham.
This man had an argument with that man.
Next thing, a punch turns to a stab, a stab turns to a gun
and somebody's shot.
If I see you, I think, "Ain't that my man from that area?"
It's on sight?
What do you mean "on sight"?
- You see anyone, just fuck 'em up. - In what way?
Fuck 'em up, man. Kill 'em. Beat 'em up. Stab 'em up. Shoot 'em.
That's what it's come to, a postcode thing.
You're from this area, you're involved. It's simple.
What's the war about?
I don't even know, you know.
Hear them guns blow in the ghetto
For that big or that small dough
Beef burns slow like the bloods at the hydro for my dough...
Show us. What happened?
Yeah, I got stabbed there.
Once there on my arm.
It's gang stuff, really.
How many of your friends have been stabbed or shot?
Loads of my friends have been stabbed.
Loads of my friends have been shot, like.
Gotta be very aware of your surroundings.
What do you mean?
Just, like, a lot of people...
This is like a kind of main road in Handsworth, as well.
A lot of people sometimes drive past here
and see if they can see someone from this area
to try and pick them off.
And it's always constantly just looking over your back.
I watch every car that goes past, so I know who's in there.
A man no take backchat
Man will back a weapon
Probably a 4/5 or a MAC-11
And there ain't nothin' you can tell 'em
Man, I pop your melon and a shot straight to your cerebellum
And it's real struggle that I'm reppin'
And I can't see the rats around me but I can smell 'em...
It's a shame that...
..I'm so used to people getting stabbed and getting shot.
It's a shame.
Every day I wake up, "Such and such got shot. Swear down."
Cos are we really winnin'? Are the kids grinnin'?
When shots go off in a man's christening
They say niggers don't listen All this black on black
Will there be peace now that Silk's missing?
13's missing?
- Look. See that there? - A wall.
- And that there? - Yeah.
Slugs. Right there and right there.
- Unfortunately, I was the target. - You were the target?
- Yeah, right here. - Bloody hell.
How fast you can get into the alley there.
Look at the gate. It's got a padlock on there now.
I would have been dead.
Aston, home of gun crime, G.
Pop, pop, pop, pop.
Zoom on a motorbike. Jump off. That's some next shit, blood.
I'll be duckin' and divin' Bustin' at hood niggers mainly
I got shot once That's enough shit for me, baby
Shine a gun, rude boy I'm staying daily...
You see a man walking, catching, you run upon him, so he don't see.
Now, if you're doing that, you're living like that,
then you're gonna wanna be aware of some people doing that to you.
You have to be on point.
Especially, if you're at the height of shit that's going down,
you have to be very on point.
You moan about the people that are gone and you just think,
"How many more people have to go because these people have gone?"
And, like, ain't there no way, like, you know..?
If we could ask these people what they really want, like,
you're never gonna come back and live,
but what would you want?
I guarantee you, half of them will say,
"To stop killing each other. You don't wanna be here like this."
This cannot be living.
I don't believe this is what we were put here to do,
just do what we're doing.
I think there's more to it than this.
So what did you do?
Phoned Penny up, yourself, cos you'd finished doing the film,
so I know you had connections with some of them Burgers and that.
So I contacted you to contact Dylan,
who's affiliated with Burgers.
Yeah, it's Flash. Waagwaan?
What you sayin', G? What's happenin'?
So Shabba called me,
because I got to know young men on both sides of the conflict,
while researching my film One Day, in 2007.
I stayed good friends with Dylan who played Flash in the film.
I got a phone call from Penny
saying that a guy named Shabba from the B6 side of town
was thinking about any way where there could be a truce.
My first initial thought was, "OK, this is against the grain."
If my friends hear I'm talking to somebody from the other side of town,
or people I wanna associate with, they're thinking, "Yo, I'm dodgy."
So my first thought was "Do I really wanna do it?"
Then I thought to myself I've got kids coming up,
I've heard 'em talk about this gang stuff, so I'm obliged to.
Wanna be a gunman, do ya?
Just making the film One Day,
I've got these kids running up to me saying, "Yo, Flash, Flash, Flash."
I feel obliged to push this message - you don't wanna be like Flash,
you don't want that lifestyle, you don't wanna be involved in that.
Shabba, you made it.
And how did you feel before the meeting?
Before the meeting, I was nervous. I'm not gonna lie.
I don't really get nervous like that.
This is some different kind of stuff, cos it's against all rules.
It goes against what I grew up to believe in,
even though it's rubbish.
For me to go into the room, I was nervous, thinking, "What is this?"
I could have went in there and he's gonna think,
"There's my man from that side of town. Let's get rid or fuck him up."
You wake up every day saying, "Something is not right."
Yeah.
I don't know if we're gonna get a next chance
to come back in a next world and do it again.
Well, we're only gonna get this one chance, innit, brother?
Like I says, you're only gonna be 10 once, 20 once, 30 once.
There's no part two of this, next year or in the next lifetime.
Bruv, right now, it's real.
I've lost a load of friends. I've lost a load of people.
A load of people around me... Misery, and a load of angry people.
You wake up and think, "I can't be living like this. It's not a joke."
Yeah, it's not. Do you get me?
You're burying your friend. You've done your crying.
You can't be living like this, man. This is crazy. You understand it?
Who else can I think of that's gonna come up and say,
"You know what? We have to stop this ting,"
and can actually get to the next side and get back and vice versa?
So it's a good thing for me to be sitting here with Dylan.
Being able to pass messages and get messages back and forward
to let people know it's not that time.
So you can't call five man out of college to do this job.
This job has to be taken care of by people that are affiliated,
whether they're out there banging...
You need to be around these members. Man, active...
In half an hours time,
I could be with a man who's licking off heads and that.
That's how real it is and it's a small world.
Yeah.
How are we gonna really do this? Kind of, like, you get me?
Like I says, it could, like...
it could put men in problems.
I'm not gonna lie. Some people might not like it.
It's gonna be hard to get through, though.
I don't get paid. There's no reward.
The only thing that could come of this is someone could say,
"Fuck him, we're lighting him up."
So that's why I know my heart's in it.
I believe, if we don't do it, no one's gonna do it.
We've gotta try and do it.
Even if nothing comes of it,
when they mention Burgers, Johnnies or war,
they'll know that at least there's a man out there thinking,
"I'll try and do something."
Man can’t ever tell me how much I've put my life on the line
for my community.
That thing what we did yesterday
is bigger than what anybody could imagine,
Just for us to have spoken.
Then I've sent a message that way. And he's sent a message his way.
Are we meeting someone I know, Dylan?
I don't know if you've met...
How old is he?
26 now, but as far as I can remember, he's always been around it so...
The kids need to understand that they're arguing over nothin'.
All of this is over nothin'.
That's the scary thing about it.
If there's gonna be some peace or whatever you wanna call it...
Order, you know it’s order
..yeah, order, I'm willing to try.
I just can't see it being like... I dunno, man.
I'm not saying this is gonna be straight peace like that,
but I'm saying...
Them lot hollered at Penny, you know.
This is what I keep saying to ya. You see when you say, "Them lot?"
All right, I'll say an individual.
Shabba, That individual there, he's not valid.
Yeah, I hear that.
I need to hear it from someone who I know deep down inside my heart
that is up to no good.
But he's saying there's active men that are involved in the thing
and these are men doing stuff on the road.
They've said it from their heart.
If you can stop this thing, stop it, innit?
These motherfuckers are not stupid.
They can be saying all that because they wanna get involved in stuff.
They wanna get their fingers dipped in certain little situations
that otherwise they couldn't have.
Would you talk to your enemy to set us free?
Or just wait for the 5-0 to give you the key?
Cos ten men getting 30 That was injustice
When it was war they taught us to bust this
How can we come together? Cos they don't trust us
Where's the loyalty? Is there no love left?
Ride and die for niggers till there's no thugs left
Then bust the guns till there's no slugs left
Cos the government's having a party and they're calling it Illuminati
It's Boxing Day
There's been a shooting in town.
Gonna phone Shabba and see what we can do.
Try to sort the situation out, innit?
I'm good to go right now, bruv.
We're here, innit, so if you're free, you could link up.
Retaliation is what I'm worried about.
Even though a meeting in town could be dodgy,
before this escalates and turns into some big drama,
Shabba and I have agreed to hook up for the second time
to see if we can sort this out.
You shouldn't be making the youths wind you up, though.
You've been around, yeah.
You've been around long enough to know, blood.
It's like a lickle brother winding you up and you say,
"You carry on, I'm gonna beat you up."
You know what, say, "Fuck him” man.
You can't be making men bring you down to their level
to have youth activity, blood.
Since, man, I met up and that, nothing ain't really happened.
Minor tings, but nothing on the scale of how fucking last year was,
with this heat wave of shooting and that.
Cos the next man dies now or next shot goes off,
it's gonna get messy again.
I could get five men and you could get five men
and they could sit there and say,
"You done this and you done that and, yeah, my bredren this..."
What I'm sayin', if we just stop it, blood...
Fuck it off. You get me blood?
Fuck it off, innit? See how it goes for a bit, man.
This conversation's never been had.
15, 20 years this gang thing's been running,
this conversation's never been had.
So what are people suspicious of? What would they say?
People are suspicious we're doing it with an ulterior motive.
It's either to get money
or there's the police involved somewhere along the lines.
There's loads of things people are wary about.
I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.
I'm advising ya, so don't be mad at me
or don't think I'm trying to pull no stunts,
or it's not no money scam.
This is for all of us in the long run, blood.
They don't seem to understand. “Why would you wanna do it?”
But we're gonna show them the bigger picture, bruv.
We're gonna keep it moving, we’re gonna keep pushing.
This is the black holocaust
Where we're judged by the way we walk
And close friends get killed for the way we talk
You bring up so much anger You're supposed to know
That this world don't owe you anything
Cos we was born to lose but built to win
You're not supposed to talk to the enemy, as people would say, but...
I don't look at them as my enemy.
The life I live, government, police, the way the system works,
I don't look at them as my enemy.
If people have got a problem with them, fair enough,
but I wouldn't say my enemy.
I'd rather get up and go and kill a policeman,
to tell the God's honest truth.
I'm more angry at them, you know, than them.
I'm really mad at...
I think if you put all these mans together
and make them have to fight a cause like the Lozells riots...
Make them have to fight a cause together.
I reckon, that's what will bring everyone together again
and make people appreciate each other.
That's what I'm sayin'. Birmingham love all the way around.
He knows what it is already. I don't have to say no more.
I'm from the older generation, man.
I used to follow my grandmother with shopping
and you have to say hello to every black woman
and every woman.
See, here's a big man right here.
You know, this is the man
that owns the dumpling shop up the road, Sovereign's Café.
This is a documentary.
We're talking about resolving the gang situation in Birmingham.
Tell them what you think about what's going on with this gang situation
and how it was back in your day, as well.
My days were proper.
Life was ever so simple.
We didn't fight each other.
Stop lying, man. You fought the Teddy Boys.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
But we didn't fight each other.
You know, we think about love.
We think about love and girls.
So in the riots, the ones in '85, do you remember those?
I remember both of them.
Then people were fighting the police and the National Front.
They weren't fighting each other.
No, they weren't fighting each other. It was the police.
People were just fed up with society, you know?
Nothing was happening,
so people just burst out one night, the police.
When police lost control
of a half-mile stretch of road in Handsworth,
the neighbourhood was reduced to a blazing inferno.
The police were powerless to stop it.
The orgy of destruction that followed
made it look like something out of the Blitz.
But, the tragedy is that it's come after so many years
of very good community relations here
with nothing to indicate that this would happen.
It is pure naked hooliganism
running on into upright violence and theft.
Two days after having one of the best carnivals
that we've ever had in the city,
and it would appear, through insensitive policing again,
we're now struck with this silly problem.
The bigger generation were fighting for a real cause
which was to get rid of racism out of Birmingham.
You know what I mean?
But it was never no kill black-on-black crime.
We're arguing over postcodes that don't belong to us.
Street corners that don't belong to us.
We have to pay council tax to live there.
We don't want these roads. You're fighting for a postcode.
Do you own a postcode? No.
Like you were saying, trust is a luxury.
Yeah, it is, man.
Trust is a luxury, cos you can't trust anybody.
A lot of people let you down.
You trust anybody and that makes you vulnerable.
You have to stay paranoid to be on point and it's horrible.
It's been sad for a long time, Penny. That's what I'm saying.
Man, a lot of heartache and things. Right now, it's not that bad.
There's times where you don't even wanna
be driving up on the road like this.
Do you understand it?
You know, when it's peak and it's fully on, Shabs.
There's times when you don't wanna be on the road.
You'll get the call saying, "Yo." You get me?
There'll be gang bangers driving around
looking for someone to lick down,
so you don't come on the road, become a victim.
It gets like that.
To tell the truth, it's been kind of hell.
People are falling out with each other,
saying I'm trying to get to Hollywood by making a documentary.
There's been bare arguments.
People are been saying, "You're working with police."
We haven't been able to film any of this madness,
because the mandem don't allow cameras in the hood.
It's all good me having my opinion,
but without any backing, it don't really make no sense.
Like I say, for me to reach out to the elders,
they're not gonna listen to me, cos they'll say,
"D boy, your opinion don't really count like that."
So I need somebody with some weight in this thing to back me on it.
Be the boss, paid the cost
It nearly ruined my life
Wasted years in the penny
So I'm newing my life
For all the dirt and the shit I've been through in my life
I should be stuck in jail doing the life
Touch down in H town No more confined to a cell
A lot of niggers actin' hard Spitting grimey as well
Never seen a prison yard They no done no time in a cell
This for my gangsters doing time with an L
Look, hot up out of prison
I feel I got religion...
Bredren Zilla's just come out the penner.
He's original Burger Bar.
He's been doing this ting from the get-go. Done eight years in jail.
This blood is influential. Bad people listen when he speaks.
This is the prison right here. You know what I'm sayin'?
You don't wanna be ending up behind that wall.
So they accused you of trying to kill a policeman?
Yeah, times two. Trying to kill two of them.
I was on two attempted murders of the police.
That was my original charge.
Attempted murder times two on two officers.
But they had to drop it to a lesser charge,
cos they couldn't prove that I tried to kill nobody.
Tryin' to say, I tried to shoot one of them, yeah?
And the gun jammed.
Then I tried to shoot the next one and the gun jammed.
But if the gun's jammed on one person,
how can I attempt to kill someone again?
It was just a load of shit.
I got eight-and-a-half years,
which I done eight years out of it, more or less.
I've been jail enough times.
This time, I tried to really learn something,
so when I get out, obviously, I'm gonna do something right, innit?
You know, the place is a mess, so my priority was,
if I can make one difference in the hood where I come from,
then that's an achievement to me, you get what I'm sayin'?
If I can deter one person from ending up in there where I ended up,
that's an achievement for me, innit?
So that's what I want, innit?
I've got a lot of friends left in jail still. You get me?
I feel their pain.
But mans here and some of them ain't gonna get to experience this.
You understand what I'm sayin'?
Zilla has agreed to support the movement 100%,
but he has asked us to highlight the case of four of his friends,
who are doing life after a high-profile trial.
The thing people remember most about Burger Bar and Johnsons
is the tragic killing of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis
on New Year's Day, 2003.
This has got to end.
My daughter's life was cut short...
..by this killing.
A part of me died when Letisha died.
This is as bad as it gets.
Please help.
OK.
But two wrongs don't make a right.
My friends were identified by an anonymous witness
and Marcus Ellis got 35 years based solely on his evidence.
I don't think we've really taken on board,
what a serious step it is to allow witnesses
to give evidence anonymously in our courts,
speaking in Dalek voices through voice-distortion equipment,
shielded from the view of everyone in court,
sometimes even defending counsel.
You're not allowed to ask another witness
if the anonymous witness was even present at the scene.
You can't check.
What I've got is the prison records
that were made available to the court
of Mark Brown, who is the anonymous witness.
He's at Brinsford at the detention centre.
You're saying in June that the Johnson boys are after you.
They've attacked you.
You were seen wandering out of some toilets,
dazed and bleeding with your clothes torn.
"Does that ring a bell?" And he says, "Yes."
So then Nigel Rumfitt says,
"Cooperating with the police started to become attractive to you."
Yeah, of course.
As soon as he started cooperating,
he was moved from Brinsford to a different prison.
Vulnerable people, in them situations,
do anything they can do to get out of that situation.
Jail is not a nice place. You understand what I'm sayin'?
You give your life away to the place. You know, it's not nice.
When you visit the scene,
you begin to appreciate how unbelievable the evidence
that that witness gave is.
The party was here at these premises.
Mark Brown, the anonymous witness,
claimed that he came out for fresh air
and the vehicle drove along the service road,
with tinted windows,
discharged a firearm,
sadly killing the two young girls.
This was round about 4:00am...
..at the very beginning of January,
so it would still have been intensely dark.
So Mark Brown claimed that he could clearly identify
four men wearing masks in a moving car
with heavily tinted windows in the middle of the night.
It's a matter of a split second
for the vehicle to go past the relevant positions.
It would have been quite impossible to identify anyone in that vehicle.
He then refuses to attend an identity parade.
It's the same guy saying
that he can't point these people out in an ID parade,
that's saying that he could see these people in a tinted-out car,
with masks on, in the middle of the night.
But he can't go into a room, bright as fuck! You understand it?
You can see their whole face, and he can't pick them out there?
I don't know how people feel about it. It's wrong, innit?
Okay, it's wrong, innit? it's just blatantly wrong.
Because my friend had the gang marker,
he was stitched up in a way that wouldn't happen to anybody else
who didn't have this gang marker.
So, your car is gang affiliated.
Your house, gang members go to this house.
Everything becomes gang affiliated.
When you go to the court of law now and that word "gang" comes up,
it gives them powers to use acts that they've created
to go against gang members.
It started because there is a great deal of witness intimidation.
And there's no doubt about that. It does go on.
There are gangs in our inner cities now,
gangs with access to firearms,
which is not something that used to be as widespread as it is,
and there is a genuine problem.
But, in my view, it's a problem primarily for the police,
whose relationship with certain minorities of the inner cities
has broken down in recent years.
And it's a problem for politicians
to sort out questions of social cohesion,
which make it so difficult for people to give evidence.
What you can't do is address a social problem like that
by throwing away the thousand years of legal history
and the protection of the rights of the accused
and by having unfair trials to combat social problems.
It's not a remedy.
Marcus gave me that first phone call
and said, "Mum..."
He said, "Mum... they've found me guilty."
And we both cried together.
He says, "Mum, sometimes when you're in the cell,
"the realisation just hits you right in your face...
"..that you're here."
And he even said to me
that he visualised himself
in nursery and then school...
..primary school and then secondary school,
and then he said to this.
And it just kind of just knocked him for six.
On the... on... on the streets of Birmingham.
Zilla was cool that we agreed to highlight the case
and used his influence
to bring cameras into the hood for the first time.
Cameras are a no-go in my community,
especially when we are talking about gangs and whatnot,
so today's kind of monumental, really.
What about one of these guys? You're 17.
He's 16. What are you, 15 today? 16 today?
You're 17 today? God, you're getting old, man.
Big-arse youths, as well, man. You're 17.
Stand up next to me, bruv. He's 17, bruv.
What are you eating round here, bruv?
The other side of town that ain't from here,
are they seen as, like, enemies or just like..?
What's your take on it?
Now it's that bad, half of the men can't even go to town.
You have to go to town in a group.
And the police don't like that.
And if you go to town in a group, police are looking to draw you.
You're drawing more attention to yourself.
You don't want that. You're going to buy some clothes.
Once you reach a certain age, you ain't going to Newtown.
They don't know you. When they see you, they think, "Who's this?"
You could be on it, but they just don't know this.
Yeah, like I said, everybody's defensive.
All that postcode shit is a bag of bullshit to me.
I don't rep nothin' that owns to the government. Me, myself and I.
You understand it, rude boy, and it's the truth, huh?
I helped start all of this shit, man.
Started all of this shit. You understand what I'm sayin'?
So it's my job to try and fix it, innit?
I won't feel right in myself otherwise.
We're bringing the hood together. Stopping the fucking hood.
Say it like this, say 50 men say, "Yeah, forget it,"
but one man out of 50 men, something happens from the past.
Everyone's going back to what they was doing before, innit?
No one's not sticking to what they was doing.
Just go back to what it was before, blood.
If a man thinks he can push my button,
that's a reason to fuck up, cos I'm gonna make an example out of him.
I ain't allowing for anyone to think that I'm a chump,
cos it can't work like that, blood.
It just don't make no sense, blood.
A man violates you. That's one nil to him.
You go and lick down. You think it's one nil to you cos he's dead.
Well, at the end of the day, you're on the run.
Eventually, when you get caught with the thing, you're fucked.
Then you're sitting down.
How have you won?
Your life's fucked, you know.
There's no winners. That's what men need to understand.
We're not meant to be warring like this, bruv.
Forget Birmingham and anything. We're young men. Black brothers.
Fair enough, but when they see you, even so you wanna stop whatever...
- Yeah, bruv. - You know what's gonna happen.
I’m gonna have to be a man. That's what I'm sayin'.
So what, you're supposed to get beat up?
No, this what I'm showing ya. I'm not sayin' that.
Us elders, we have to link up with their elders
and talk to our youths and they have to talk to their youths.
Don't think it's just us on this side. It's over there, as well.
We have to put this order in place.
Even with having Zilla out, it's been kind of a mission.
Shabba, he ain't got no support.
Hey, yo, we're tryin' to stack a million
My life in Brumigan
Code name Zimbo, birth name Simeon
Get money how you can It's not opinion...
There are loads of mandem over there. He's got loads of men against him.
On the phone, I can hear the background
and it sounds like madness,
so for him to keep pushing, I have to respect him.
And I ain't tryin' to be nice, fool I'm tryin' to be real...
People are like, "Fuck the truce and that."
Too much things are happening. Too much bad things have happened.
Smell me I ain't had a wash for two days
Cos I'm out on the street trying to move these 2Ks...
I'm rhymin'...
No one wants a truce. They don't mind having beef.
Man don't mind.
The life that men are living now, we don't care.
It is what it is, innit?
You're talking about truce and this and that, blood.
They're thinking, "You're chatting shit. You're a dickhead.
"When I see this man, I'm gonna fuck him up."
If it's gonna save a couple of youths growing up in the future...
When you're dead, they'll remember me, for what I was about
and for what I was trying to do.
If we all got together today and says,
"Yo, the beef between Burger Bar and Johnsons is done, it's dead,"
nothin', nothin' ain't changed.
It's just that...
Not for us it wouldn't, but for the youths it would.
Why do you think it would change for the youths?
They're still gonna be seeing and going through the same shit.
It's just that Johnsons and Burgers haven't got beef.
These little youths in Aston will probably have beef
with them little youths in Newtown now,
cos the mentality's still there.
Every lickle nigger in my ends is on this thing, regardless.
They're down to reppin' this thing.
You phone them, they'd feel like "Wow! They phoned me to come."
I'm rolling. You understand it?
They're passionate about it. What, goin' to jail and dyin'?
That's why we have to push this thing hard.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be the hardest nigger on the road.
I wanted to be a gang banger, sell drugs.
That's what I wanted to do. That was the life, innit?
When I was growing up, my pops weren't there,
so, obviously, where I learnt to do my thing or whatever is on the road.
So, obviously, I'm gonna be a road man.
The only niggers that showed me anything are road men.
I've been gang-banging since I was about 13, bro,
so I don't know nothin' else.
- When you're tellin' men... - Stop what you're doing.
You get me, man? This is the norm now.
It's not even a bad thing to us. It's life. It's not even bad.
Right now, this is about the senseless killing, the idiot thing.
Half these youths, they don't know what this thing's about.
What are they reppin'? What are half of these people reppin'?
I asked them, "What's it about?" They don't know.
You don't know nothin' else.
When you don't know nothin' else, you don't know nothin' else.
How much of us have been suspended from school or expelled?
Yeah, everyone, innit? Everyone, innit?
You're 12, 13. We don't have a dad.
So now we're suspended. We don't need to go back to school.
The school don't want us, so why are we gonna go back to school?
Now we see money. We're seeing older people making money.
Well, we're wanting that. You get me?
We're lost, innit? We've just come up lost, innit?
That's what it boils down to, blood.
We need to be growing young black men, not no niggers.
We need to be growing young black men.
Hate it or love it, you're on the internet, Zimbo.
You get 100,000 hits, bruv. You're a role model, B.
You're responsible. You get me? Regardless...
We're responsible for our actions and for the kids coming up.
I've got seven boys, you know, dawg. My biggest boy's nearly 14, bruv.
When I said I'm going to speak to Shabba the first time,
he said "You're mad. You're going to Aston?"
You know, that kind of scared me, blood.
Imagine that. My son said that to me.
Imagine how that scared me, like, yo.
Man, look it's giving me goose bumps now even thinking about it, bruv.
Like, yo, I've seen it, you know, bruv.
I've seen my bredrens leave. I've seen my man twisted up.
I've seen them fucked up. I've seen them in jail doing life.
Imagine my youth could fall into that.
Are you crazy? I have to do something, bruv.
- I think we're fucking ourselves. - We're fucking ourselves!
It's not even the system, the government. It's ourselves, blood.
Bruv, you see blaming people, that's all wasted energy.
Let's make it happen, innit?
If we deal with the real issues, what's really going on,
that's what I'm passionate about, changing the way niggers think,
changing the way we're living, innit?
By coming at us with the truce thing,
we ain't listening to another word you gotta say.
All this conflict resolution stuff is a lot harder than I thought.
James Purnell, who's producing this documentary, is an ex-MP.
James says he has somebody who could help or give us advice.
This person is Jonathan Powell.
He helped broker the Peace Treaty in Northern Ireland.
One of the things I did was Northern Ireland peace talks
because when Blair came in in '97,
it had gone back to violence - the IRA started killing.
the big bomb in Canary Wharf
and a bunch of bombs in Northern Ireland.
Tony Blair managed to get them back into peace talks
and then in about a year,
we got them to the Good Friday Agreement
where they finally signed off on a peace agreement.
I guess that's kind of what you're facing,
cos if you're going to make this stop after all these years,
it's not something you do in two or three weeks.
it's something that's going to take a very long time.
We're not a threat to the government. We're not shooting police.
That makes it harder for us.
Whereas the government could think, "They're not bothering us."
That's the problem, everyone thinks,
"They're killing each other. Why would we care?"
They're not going to invest in it, as a way of stopping,
so you'll have to do it yourselves.
Some of these mans are hard work. It's hard work. Ignorant.
Nothing to live for. Nothing to look up to.
No role models in their lives.
So it's hard to get through it.
It's been this way for so long. It's what they know.
They're just comfortable in that.
They don't see no need for no change or nothing like that,
so the hard part is basically getting a vision across of the bigger picture
of like, you know, what we really should be doing.
What I worry about is looking like you're surrendering,
because that's always a problem - how you persuade both sides.
The big-man thing to do is not to shoot someone,
it's to actually draw a line now, not have anything from now on,
and something will happen and you need some way of diffusing it.
In North Belfast, a leader, Gerry Kelly, who used to be in the IRA,
escaped from jail three times - once in Ireland, twice from British jails.
Gerry Kelly, at one stage, had to stand,
holding back a whole crowd of young Catholics
who wanted to attack.
Some of the more crazy ones started shooting at him,
rather than at the police or at the Loyalists.
He had to put himself on the line to stop that from happening.
My warning is the first steps are easier than further on.
If you start losing faith in it,
I just urge you to keep faith and to have patience in doing it
and absorb a certain amount of pain in doing it, because you'll have to.
But it's really, really worth it. You can change. You can make it.
You're not part of the solution,
you're part of the problem.
I know where your head's at, blood.
I know you're on this thing and you're a down nigger,
but I know you'd like to get involved in something like this, blood.
People are trying to help us. That's what I want you to know, blood.
I ain't gonna bullshit you.
That's why I want you to come to the meeting - to see for yourself.
These are proper MPs, people that rub shoulders
with Tony Blair and Parliament - proper big people.
So if that's not good enough for you to say you're from the hood...
You know like they say,
"Bring the Queen down. I wanna talk to her direct..."?
How high up do you need to be going, blood?
Who do you wanna get your message across to?
These people are prepared to help us.
I know some are saying, "Fuck that." You shouldn't look at it like that.
You know...
Yeah!
The next time we see my face, we could have, like, 40 men.
Like, who knows?
That's one thing we're opening the door to.
Do you not wanna get involved, blood, seriously?
Don't keep saying I'm doing my thing, blood,
cos it's not my thing, blood.
You know I'm having problems on this side.
No one listens. That's why I say I need support.
They've got their thing mapped out.
Over on this side, everyone's like, "No."
I don't know what you want me to do.
I need someone like you or Nuggz, Sharp,
someone to back me up, blood.
See what's going on.
If you think there's money, you get the money, as well, then, innit?
If that's what you believe.
As long as you're here, it's not gonna harm you.
I didn't say no one ain't gonna harm you, blood.
Who said anything about harming you, blood?
No, I didn't say that.
Did I say that no one is gonna harm ya?
What am I gonna say someone will harm you for, blood?
I said it's not gonna harm you to come down. That's what I said.
Who?
What are you on about, blood?
Blood, I'm saying...
Different day same shit when I wakin' up
Lyin' in my bed Wishin' that I never woken up
I've got this father that I never ever see
And the only time I see this little prick is in my dreams
Every day I'm wonderin' "Has he forgot about me?"
Every night I'm on me knees askin', "God, why me?"
Mum don't want her son to be taken by the streets
But this is the life I lead
So it's kind of beat wonderin' if people will miss me
When I'm 6ft deep
Tossin' in my grave cos I can't rest in peace
I've got so much demons surroundin' me
So I call on Most High to come and rescue me...
Today we're going to speak to the youngsters,
who are my sons' friends.
They've got friends that have been stabbed,
but nobody's actually died.
They haven't got the pain and don't feel that revenge yet.
So we have to get to them before it's too late.
You're aware of what's going on, innit?
And I know you're getting slowly but surely close to it, innit?
I look over my shoulder in this area even...
Every three to four seconds.
I ain't tryin' to wish no death or nothin'.
Anything could be round the corner, really...
Anything, anything could be around the corner.
- How old are you lot? - 15 and a half.
15.
That kind of age group... They're all 15.
You understand what I'm sayin'?
What do you know about growing up on the ends?
All the beef, the "man dem", the "bwoy dem" and, yeah....
Started to like know about it from, like, Year Seven onwards.
Year Seven, that's what I'm sayin'.
11 and that thing. Same with all of that, as well.
My bredren got stabbed the other day.
- Over the gang stuff? - Yeah.
Yeah.
It was in Aston. Yeah, Aston. That's what I'm sayin'.
You can go to that area, but if you get caught slipping, then...
You've gotta do something about it, innit?
Because of, like, the pride, as well.
We gotta keep the pride. I'd probably die if my pride died.
That's why it escalates.
Say something happened to my man here,
then, obviously, we'll all go back.
It'll escalate and then if we do something to them,
then they try and do something to us.
Like, if he had a fight or he got rushed,
I'd go back there straightaway, not thinking.
If it's just us two and there was ten of them, I'd go there.
Probably might die or whatever. That's what I mean.
You just don't think, do you?
You don't hesitate to do things. It just happens.
They can't afford guns.
It's not that easy to get guns, regardless of what people think.
So they've all got little knives and they will poke you up with it.
You poke the wrong artery, you will bleed to death,
unless you make it to the hospital in seconds.
It's impossible.
Don't you think that's a waste of life?
Yeah...
I don't see it as a waste of life. It's just... I don't know.
- That is life. - Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just a way of life that we know.
After filming on that day, I had phone calls.
There were people that wasn't too happy with what we was filming
and some people didn't understand what the message was,
so it made them kind of hostile to what we was doing.
If we don't get through certain mindsets,
it can be a serious thing, you understand?
I mean, I'm not worried for myself.
I'm not saying, "I'm Superman. No one can shoot me."
Anyone can get killed, anyone can get shot,
but I ain't worried for myself like that.
I don't know, but I worry for him.
You understand what I'm sayin'? If people come to, like...
He will be the target. 100%. Do you understand what I'm sayin'?
I told him on the phone.
I said, "Listen, tell D boy I'm gonna kill him."
Not calling no names or nothin', but you know...
And like...
They've got the place in their hand. You have the whole hood in your hand.
You say, "Jump," and they say, "How high?" That's the reality of it.
So that's why it's up to man to be responsible
and make things right, innit?
So, what's up?
We've kind of hit kind of a brick wall.
Like, my mum's windows got smashed out
and, like, the night before, like, a 17-year-old kind of died.
So I don't know about all this truce stuff.
Right now, basically, the truce thing, like,
it's not gonna happen, innit?
It's just long.
You know, whoever did it knows who they are, innit?
Dickhead business.
Punk business, bredren. Punk business.
- You understand? - Look at the size difference.
This is why they try and pick up on lickle D boy. You get me?
But just forget it, innit?
It's a girl business, innit, like I say.
They didn't pick on me. They went to my mum's house.
My mother's house. I don't even live there.
You've gone to my mum's house. Do you understand it? For what?
Now the big issue is a youth died yesterday night.
I woke up in the morning at seven o'clock.
My son said to me, "Dad, a boy's got killed. My friend's got killed."
These are the things we're trying to prevent.
It's just going on right in front of us
and it's just raw and it's kind of...
Tried to do something that I thought was gonna benefit everyone,
but, obviously, some people don't see the vision.
We just want a better future for the youth coming up.
We don't want them jumping on a bush that we jumped on.
We need to uplift ourselves and do something. Understand?
Look around. Like, we don't own nothin'.
Look on the Ansell Road, all those places,
niggers don't own shit.
You understand what I'm sayin'?
Man wanna inspire the youths to be something,
so when they get to them ages, they own shops,
they've got that mind where they say, "Why should I go on the road?
"Why don't I go college? Why don't I aspire to be something?"
What are we doing, Dylan?
We're gonna walk over by that dome and meet the kids.
Where's the rest of your gang?
Down there on the thing.
A couple of days ago, when I was saying talk to the kids
before their friends die or something...
These kids have got that in them - "They killed my friend."
They've always got a reason now.
Every time you tell them something,
they'll tell you, "But he killed my friend."
When people in normal society get murdered,
there's a whole campaign, there's rewards put up.
But when people in my community get murdered,
it doesn't even make the news.
You're just dead.
We saw you two days ago and nothing had happened then.
It's really shocking.
Like, my friend, Shyheim,
he got fucking... stabbed for...
He owed him money for some reason. Do you know the story?
Nah.
Like, it hit one of his main arteries and it bled out too much,
like five pints of blood.
How did you hear about it?
Oh, on BB.
Like, everyone just kept putting up,
like, "RIP Shyheim" and "RIP Tricks."
But I thought it was a joke thing at first.
"To all the people on BB, this should be a wake-up call to you.
"Rest in peace, Shy."
What does that make you feel like you wanna do or think?
This is real life, isn't it?
This ain't a game.
It's real life. Life ain't a game.
Yeah.
Scary world.
Real talk, I'm not even involved in the gang thing, really.
It's all about money.
Just because I'm from Handsworth, I wouldn't want one of them to bully me
because I'm from Handsworth.
But you told me it was about girls and every girl likes a tough boy.
No, that's, like, part of it.
That was... That was... That was back in the day!
Cut! Cut!
It was about, to me, I was trying to look cool for girls,
so I throw a gang sign just to impress the girls, innit?
But now you're growing up thinking, "Girls are just shadows to me."
I walk and left them.
I don't chase them, I replace 'em!
Yeah, yeah! Change 'em like socks!
After Shyheim was murdered,
there were four days of violence, stabbings and shootings,
not connected directly to Shyheim, but the violence was terrible.
There was a shooting and a two-year-old girl was trampled on,
as people tried to escape the gunshots ringing out.
That's what the text said,
the two-year-old or three-year-old that got trampled
is in a critical condition.
That's what the text said.
They must have heard the gunshots and everybody ran.
But the buggy must have fell over, the kid tripped over,
and while everybody's running, they probably never even noticed.
In the last four days or so,
how many shootings and stabbings has there been?
There's been like...
I've heard a couple of shootings.
I've only heard the one stabbing, that was a fatality,
but I've heard a couple of shootings.
A couple of stabbings. Somebody's arm got severed.
That was nothing to do with gangs,
but I did hear a young man's arm and leg
got severed, was hanging off.
I don't know the full ins and outs. There's been a lot.
How many things do you know about that happened in the last few days?
That stabbing. Someone died the other day.
A stabbing and a shooting in a club the other day.
I don't know how much people got shot.
I've heard five, I've heard four, but I know people got shot.
I'm just statin' the facts
Talkin' about reality
Whole leap of casualties Bag of fatalities
It's fucked up But this is the life we live
This ain't the type of life that you want for your kids
Little young tugs screamin' out, "Dawg, fuck the pigs"
14 and stressin' cos he can't buy kicks...
It's mad how being in a situation,
being in the wrong place at the wrong time
does mess up your whole life.
What do you mean?
We're more harsh on our own people.
You get me? My friend got stabbed... Wednesday?
Died on the night.
Was that the boy that was stabbed to death?
Yeah, yeah, my friend Shyheim, man, and it's all cos of... hype.
People ain't got no morals no more.
Imagine getting dragged out your car
when your family member is there and getting stabbed up.
This ain't Cali. Is it Cali now? Is it California now?
Look at that. Waste of two lives, innit?
The youth's mother and family in jail, as well, they're feeling it,
and I'm not condoning him for stabbing this guy,
but I know he didn't mean to kill the youth.
They stabbed him in his leg.
It's not like he went AWOL and stabbed him in his neck and face.
He stabbed him in his leg, just thinking,
"Let me just preps him and let him know I want my money."
They licked a main artery and now the youth's dead.
Stab people... Your whole body is full of main arteries, innit?
You hit somebody in the wrong place, you get me, you miss 'em.
Let me show you something, as well. Let me show you something.
Like...
You know, the grave looks nice and it's all pretty and nice.
It's all nice.
But you have to understand, there's a youth lying in there,
that was alive like me and him,
breathing and speaking... living.
He's in there dead.
Like, in a box, in a hole, in the ground.
Life's just gone.
You know what I'm sayin'? It's just gone.
No, we're not gonna see Shy again. Do you get me?
If Heaven was a place on Earth then I'll go, then I'll go
No matter how far
I would fill the tank in my car
And I'll roll and I'll roll
Cos where I'm from there's a lot of sad faces
A lot of us had to live with the basics
And this heart thinks we've got to face the places
I know, I know...
No one wants to come to the table and see what's going on.
Everyone's making up what they think it's about or I've heard this...
No one ain't been a big man and said, "I'm gonna see for myself."
Only them geezers on the other side.
So do you want me to come link you?
Do you want me to come link you now?
What park?
Where they do the running? Where they used to do the relays?
I'll come there now.
Go see 'em and if... yeah. He's with couple of people, innit?
Yeah, but, I mean, I'm really fed up with going to people
and they're going, "Turn the cameras off."
It's just a waste of time.
I'm not saying go with no camera. See what they're saying.
- So, who is it? - He's with a couple of people.
- What, Zimbo? - Yeah.
Yeah. Do you think it's worth it, though?
It's whether you think it's worth it, innit?
I'd go and see what he's saying.
Yeah? OK.
So we'll give it a go, then.
Well, fuck knows.
- There's a carnival tomorrow. - Yeah.
And everyone's expecting for the carnival to be the same thing.
We're gonna go there, a lot of black kids are gonna end up
breaking up the carnival and rare tear, tear.
We don't wanna see that, man.
What do people think is gonna happen?
People think there are gonna be gang fights, stuff like that.
It's just another day in Handsworth or another day in Newtown.
You know what I'm tryin' to say? Just another day.
What becomes terrible to you lot becomes everyday to us.
Carnival tomorrow and thing, you get me?
- You get me? - Oh, gosh.
Yo, bare, bare babies right there. They're all barefaced with y'all.
Tomorrow's gonna be mad!
Hopefully, it should run smoothly, but I guarantee tomorrow,
there's gonna be at least one fight.
Not even fight.. Shots gonna be busting and all kinds of...
- Gunshots, bullets. - You know what I'm sayin'?
Fingers crossed, it's a nice day. Everybody has fun.
Cos Handsworth is B21,
Burger Bar side of town, there's rumours saying the guys
from the other side of town are gonna come in
and try and shoot up the place or try and get into it.
It's gonna go off at the carnival.
So that's a big worry for people. Madness.
"Come to carnival with your trainers and a bulletproof vest."
That's what's on BlackBerry.
Hopefully, everything goes well, nice and peaceful.
Have a lovely day.
Everywhere I go, I have these kids asking me questions,
"Flash, do you do this?" "Flash, give out the guns."
I couldn't get involved in no gun fights.
They listen. I have a voice that they listen to.
So make them hear the right things, innit?
Guns, make sure you don't touch them, innit?
Real talk. Big and serious, like.
That's why Flash survived, cos he didn't have the gun.
Never got involved in the gunfight.
You did. You gave the little boy the gun.
Yeah, I know and he left it, didn't he?
That's why Flash survived,
cos he didn't get involved in no gunfight.
You understand it?
I say don't touch them, yeah?
- Hello. - Hi!
Hello, there. Where can you see me?
Hello.
Hi!
- It's happenin' right now, bruv. - Yeah.
One side of the park's been breached by a gang of people, so...
It's all right!
Stop it! Stop, stop, stop!
Where the fuck is your boy?
Don't panic!
After the carnival I was thinking, "This is not gonna work.
"This is definitely, definitely not gonna work."
I was kind of sceptical.
We needed something big to happen, but when it happened,
I didn't expect it to be this.
Violence broke out after a crowd of about 200
gathered outside the local police station,
to protest about the death of Mark Duggan,
who was shot by police on Thursday.
These are sickening scenes,
scenes of people looting,
vandalising, thieving, robbing,
scenes of people attacking police officers.
This is criminality, pure and simple,
and it has to be confronted and defeated.
It's crazy, man.
If a black person was to shoot a police officer,
look how quick that's getting dealt with.
Now, seriously.
Once one of theirs is down,
look how quick that is gonna get dealt with.
They know who licked the man.
The police, they are their own gang, the biggest gang in the world,
and I can't see one of them behind bars
for killing this youth, yeah.
All of this shit we're keeping up
is keeping us from the bigger picture.
It's keeping us where we are.
That's why they don't fuck with us, that's why they leave us,
cos it's like our minds are occupied, innit?
So we're not thinking about the bigger agenda.
We're thinking about the "bwoy dem", they're this man,
and we're not thinking about what's really going on.
We're getting conned, lads. Do you understand it?
When black men weren't allowed in pubs and allowed to sit on a bus
and weren't entitled to certain things.
It's riots that made them things work, you know, blood.
People saying, "Fuck this. I'm mashing up the place."
There is bigger things going on out there, like the bigger agenda.
We should have been going to the right people
and making these people afraid.
We ain't rioting properly. We got us on TV as looters.
That's to do with this geezer that died,
just to show them that he ain't no play thing.
You can't do things behind closed doors. People are not having it.
So I say riot, mash up the economy, mash up the businesses
that are funding the police to do these things,
cos without all the money we're paying,
they wouldn't be able to have these big guns and that.
To me, that's not going to work.
You can't just go everywhere,
just kick off doors, try to get your voice heard.
We need to come at it more strategically.
We've been rioting for years, man, and we're still fucked.
If we had a link to a political person that came from Tottenham,
and they could say, "This is what it is..."
And him and this political person is on TV and they're having a debate,
then it would have been a different look.
We ain't got no structure,
or we're just whining now for impulses.
Like, we do and then think about it when we're fucked later.
The policeman killed the geezer.
You don't need a spokesman to explain what happened.
Someone needs to say,
we need to hear someone say, "We want justice, bruv."
The man from the hood knows what it is.
Anybody else thinks, "What's going on?"
They're probably thinking a blackie was thieving in the first place,
that's why he got licked down.
We need to put ourselves in positions of power.
Like I says, we're too low in the food chain everywhere.
Power, blood, is through violence, blood.
Nah.
You have to use a bit of violence.
Make them know you're not playing about and then keep mad.
I had no idea the effects the riots would have on our peace movement.
I thought it would make things worse.
The police have got balaclavas on, so it might go down today.
- The police have balaclavas on? - Yeah. Fully ballied up.
There must be something out here.
Hello.
Hello, hello, hello.
- Do you remember me? - Hi, Flash!
How comes you didn't wanna make your way home, lads?
I'm just looking for stuff on the floor.
Looking for stuff on the floor?
They're rioting, cos a black boy
was killed by the police earlier on this week.
That's the reason for the protests. It's not like thieving stuff.
- That's the cause behind anything. - What channel's this on?
It's not on TV yet, but you lot go home.
All right, then. Take care now. Bye-bye.
People end up coming together in riots.
You have a common enemy.
That's what kicks people's minds to think,
"Hold on. Forget fighting each other.
"People are holding us down, witnessing bad situations.
"So let's forget the bullshit Let's stick together and fight."
Do you know what's causing all this, what's fuelled all of this?
It was that kid, innit? He got shot. I heard he got shot.
I don't know what the real story is, but he got shot.
You know what, before I act off anything,
I make sure I've got the proper intel.
You know what I'm sayin'?
I make sure that, you know what, I'm fighting for that real cause.
There's no point fighting off hearsay.
So, how do you officers feel about what's going on out here?
They're acting like I'm not here.
This is the problem we have in our community.
When we speak to these people, they act like we're not here.
Once again, have you got anything to say about this situation?
Sir, we're not obliged to make any comment about what's happening here.
If you want a comment from the police, speak to the Press Office.
This is why the whole of the UK is erupting right now,
cos they're pissed, fed up of it, not having it no more.
So, as long as things remain the same,
I can see things remaining the same out here,
and me, personally, I can see into all of these people's eyes
and they look scared.
There's thousands of youths where I come from
and these youths are ready to come out here
and cause, like, a revolution,
cos they'll understand, that we do have the power.
So why didn't you join in, then?
I went to town and you couldn't get in to town.
It was blocked off,
It was just mayhem in the middle of the road.
Loads of youths running around.
I was in two minds, should I park up and walk round or..?
I just parked up there for a bit. After a bit I just got off.
Just said, "I'm not coming out to thief nothing, you know."
The damage is done. Shit mashed up, as well, yeah.
People there, standing protecting their shops,
just making it known that they don't take sides
with black people, you know.
No matter what happens, day to day in daily life,
they just made it known that they're not supporting it,
they don't business about it.
It's their business, so why wouldn't they?
Yeah, not the shop.
I'm on about... the whole criminal system, you know.
We're fighting for justice, you know. Police brutality.
Police take the piss with us and we're fighting back,
because they don't go through that, they can say, "Everything's cool."
If Asians were getting in trouble by police, they'd be pissed off.
That's why I say it's a trap, man.
It's designed to keep us down and that.
I'm hearing that shots have gone off in Aston.
Three Asians are dead yesterday.
So I don't know what happened.
All I know is that three people are passed
and there's some Asians that are not too happy.
Regardless of whether that's gonna escalate or not,
I don't know, you know.
But once you've got Asians and fucking Illuminati together,
we've got no chance.
So it's a race war now.
It's no longer the shops they need to worry about.
If it brings us together and we die together, I'm down for that.
Last night, when I was driving past, I'd seen people outside,
groups of Asian people outside their shops,
trying to defend their shops,
cos people have been smashing and looting their shops.
Somebody pulled up on the pavement and run down three people
and I've heard they died.
If it's turning into a racial war, it's gonna be serious out here.
Very, very, very, very serious out here.
It's stirred up a whole lot of stuff.
So all this Burger Bar and Johnsons thing right now,
it looks as trivial as it is right now.
With this particular incident, yes, there is potential,
but the tensions will be heightened because of that,
but there have been a succession of meetings
amongst community leaders and the police.
This is messed up. It's gone too far.
Greed and what is there to really thief on this road?
If you wanna work, you've gotta work hard for it.
There's nothing to thief, like.
Even if you are a career criminal,
what are you gonna thief on a shop that's full of food shops?
Burgers and chips?
- Ridiculous. - It's pointless.
These families need discipline.
And yourself, please.
We need to do an investigation here now.
So what have I got to do with the investigation?
Can we have a quick word?
Conducting a murder enquiry here at the moment, OK?
Who do you represent?
- Channel 4. - Thank you.
You need to move away.
- Is it confidential? - Yes, please.
You'll have to talk to the director.
What's the point of speaking to me? I'm at work at the moment.
OK, OK. All right.
Like, I'm saying. So this is my point.
Cos I'm black and I stood here, they wanna question me.
I had to explain to them I'm at work. Now they haven't got no questions.
That's how fucked up it is round here. Fucked up.
They're asking me...
Cos I've got a baseball cap on and a jacket and cos I'm not white...
They didn't ask you to speak. We all came together.
Do you understand it?
I don't trust nothing out here, me personally.
- United we stand. - Divided we fall. You understand it?
It's in my hand and his hand. That's how we need to roll.
Do you feel me?
The hood is a very, very funny place.
It changes like the weather. You understand it?
Anything could happen. It goes that way, goes this way.
It's hard. That's why a lot of people go crazy down here.
It's not very stable. There's no stability around here.
What, right now?
A truce is highly possible. Highly likely. That's the truth.
There was no gang activity during the riots.
No Burger Bar. No Johnsons.
No gang activity at all.
Everyone came together.
So, yeah, you could call it a four-day truce.
Yeah, everybody's on the same team.
Yeah, but what can you expect?
When you see advertisements for iPhone 4
every 15 minutes on your TV,
then what do you expect?
When we glorify the apps
and the this and the that and the FaceTime,
what do you expect?
A kid must have seen the thing
and thought, "Let me thief some sweets.
They smashed the window and they came and thought...
These are not criminals. These people are little kids.
Like, it's all madness that's going on right now.
I didn't even know what to say. It's kind of funny, innit, really?
When the law makers are the law breakers, as well,
you can't expect the everyday citizen
to be, you know, conducting themselves correctly
when you see stories of corruption
and you don't see any consequences to that.
And the reason why these places are so appealing to young people
is because of the kind of things
that we value, promote and advertise out there.
Yeah, Waterstone's untouched.
That would be most valuable to the people.
Exactly, yeah, where all the knowledge is,
where all the valuables really are.
Right over there. Waterstone's untouched.
Not a window broken in sight.
But yet still Cybercandy was...
I mean, can you see there's something wrong
with that picture there, people?
If I don't come out of my house and come here,
which is my family's place,
I don't go nowhere else, because I don't feel safe, mate.
The pickny no bigger than me shoes...
I wanted to hear what the elders' thoughts was
on the state of our community.
Unfortunately... unfortunately, we've got a generation lost.
It's not a generation of black lads,
it's a generation of youth that is lost.
They are completely lost to us, mate,
and there's nothin' we can do to get through to them.
For God's sake, catch the damn pickny.
Take off your belt, swipe him two time
and send him home to Mama.
Excuse me, if people thinks that that is bad and that is abusive,
sod the lot of ya.
Sod your arses about abusive.
I put life into my kids, the government, the law.
I would have box-eyed 'em in front of the Queen.
You can't tell me me can't do it.
I will do it in front of the Queen.
If they wanna lock me up after, that's fine. But you know something?
None of my kids got involved in the riots,
cos of what I've drummed into 'em.
Yesterday we listened to some big men speak
and they think it needs to be resolved with a beating.
Look at the big youth. Stand next to me, so they can see this on the roll.
You can't beat these youths, cos they'll probably beat you!
There has to be other measures to go about it.
I'm not saying that they don't need discipline,
but there's levels to beating 'em.
You can get a slap or somebody can find a piece of this in the house
and start, "Stop! Rah, rah, rah," and beat you to a pulp.
There's levels to it.
A little slap... discipline.
Like, picking up stuff and chairs.
And I've seen people get beaten, like serious beat-downs.
We have to know what we're doing. There's a lot to it.
We've got a lot of problems within ourselves
and we wanna blame the whole world, man.
Let's sort out own stuff out.
I've got the feeling kids that have been beat are slightly more violent.
I have that feeling. I'm not 100%, so you can't quote me on that.
But I've got a feeling that the kids who are beaten are more violent.
My community and where I come from, beating is normal.
What's happened to you?
Yeah, like, see the other day, like, Tuesday and that,
I was nearby town and then, like, some police see me, innit?
And they chase after me, so I started running
and I'm hiding behind one car now.
They dragged me from behind the car, they was kicking me in my face,
and they got me to the ground and they was punching me in my head,
and they were kicking me in my ribs and that
and beating me up, really.
And how old are you?
16 still. 16.
They put me in a cell for the night,
saying I have to come back in a month.
But why did they do that?
I don't know. Like, they said suspicion of me rioting. Looting.
Then that makes you feel
like you want to get them back and do whatever?
I got hatred in my heart.
I had hatred in my heart for a long time for them, but I got more now.
So I wanna get them back. You know what I mean?
Loads of police officers.
Imagine I'm in distress!
Imagine I'm in distress.
I could have been called into a problem.
It could have been anything.
There's more right there. There's more right there.
They've followed me all morning. They've followed me to the shop.
They asked me what I am doing.
Who's invested in this film to make this film?
They asking me all sorts of questions.
This is how we're living here, man. People take the mick.
- Born black, you're born a criminal. - It's the crime of the century.
It's the biggest crime, bro. The biggest crime.
It is.
It's them again. It's them again. They don't wanna stop.
The pussyholes have been following me,
but now I've come with my camera, they wanna talk to me.
They've followed me around the whole hood.
Faggots!
Can you stop the camera off a second?
- Why? - Cos I wanna speak.
- Can you knock the camera off? - No, because I'm making a film.
Well, what have we done wrong?
Just have to ask you a few questions.
But why? Why?
- Sorry? - Why are you asking us questions?
Why are you pointing a camera in my face?
- I'm making a film. You came to me. - That's fine.
Listen... We'll close the door, then.
What do we have to understand?
We haven't done anything wrong, so why are you stopping us?
This is a free country in which I'm allowed
to be in a public place making a film.
Right. Do you have a filming permit?
- Filming permit for what? - You say you're filming something.
15 minutes later,
the police demanded all of our footage from Channel 4.
They also sent emails asking community centres
to report back on all of our activities.
The police are saying they're gonna try and shut us down, bredren.
They're trying to say they're gonna try and lock us off,
cos we're gonna incite gang problems.
All of these people that have been raping us...
£190 million that they say they put into my community
to help and stop gangs - stop lying to the people.
No gang member I know or gang member I spoke to
knows any you people, innit?
You're raping my community. Keep raping us and see what happens.
We're putting our heart and soul into this.
This has been far from easy, far from easy.
A nightmare most days.
We don't know which way we're gonna turn, but we've continued.
The reason what's driving us is that there could be a passion in there.
We could have just said, "This ain't working." Fuck it off.
What was your point in stopping me to come and ask me?
I'm pissed. That's the reason I'm not happy.
I'm not happy, so that's that.
Where do you know me from?
You don't know me. You've never met me.
Where's all the anger come from?
We're pissed! You motherfuckers are killing people!
I don't wanna calm down! I'm upset!
I'm upset like the rest of the country.
We're pissed! We are mad!
Upset, innit? Right now you're killing people, innit?
No, we don't have to talk. No, it's not for the camera.
This is real-life shit!
You said, "Mr Duffus, Mr Dylan," like you know me!
You're all part of the same gang, innit?
The same way everybody puts us into the same category,
when it comes to us.
The same way you lot all fit into the same category -
point blank, period, innit?
We're guilty until proven innocent where we come from.
This is what we go through as black young men.
You're probably thinking, "Why is he behaving like that?"
If it happened to you every day, you'd behave like that.
You have no idea. You are a foot soldier, so I refuse to speak to you.
Unless you are a boss, don't talk to me.
Let's roll out, man.
What makes a race not come together?
We want order
And why do gangsters go jail before they find religion?
If they stayed and listened would they be still with us?
No fate Then they die behind prison gates
Are we supposed to wait or just hate?
A joke that we had -
what's the difference between Aston and Handsworth?
It's like Birchfield Road. You know, a road, a dual carriageway.
You know what I mean? How lame, how shallow, how petty!
Let's just hope that two weeks from now,
that the focus changes again.
That after they've mashed up their community,
after they've, you know, united, whether willingly or not,
let's hope they look at that bigger picture
and say to themselves, "What are we fighting each other for?
"Because my vulnerabilities are the same as yours."
You know what I'm sayin'?
"My institution lies, racism experience are the same as yours.
"My lack of opportunity are the same as yours.
"The only thing that's not the same is our postcode."
That's the only thing.
Cos this one lives in B6 and this one lives in B20.
Two opposite sides of Birchfield Road people.
Come on. Come on. Do better.
After almost a year on his own,
Shabba finally made a breakthrough.
Obviously, I targeted, like, official people.
I tried to go to official people,
people that had influence, people that had respect
and try and get them to see the picture.
I had a meeting with the mandem. There were about 30 men in the yard.
There were people arguing and voices were raised.
They were in there getting mad and there was a lot of tension.
I can remember Sykes was in there quiet, innit?
He was quiet the whole time, taking it all in.
I was expecting Sykes to probably take their side,
but he actually was on my side, you know.
The gang thing don't make sense.
I can tell you now, the gang thing don't make sense.
From them people that we lose, yeah,
we need to make a positive from it, you know.
There's too much memorials and that in the name of...
- Look at this. - What's all this?
That there, on the gravestone, these are all my friends, you know.
Friends that has gone. You know what I mean?
For shit that started when man weren't even fucking born.
Cos these are young men.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
May they rest in peace. May those brothers rest in peace.
Madness. You get me? Absolute madness.
I'm 26. Done nine-and-a-half years in jail. Don't make no sense.
You hear me? Don't make no sense.
All that time as a youth getting sent to jail for madness.
OK, here's my hypothesis now.
Firearms were made here during the Industrial Revolution.
Guns were made right here.
The guns that were made in Birmingham were used to trade for African people
to be taken to the Caribbean as slaves.
The youth involved in the gun crime are the descendants of the Africans
who were traded for guns made here.
The Industrial Revolution fuelled the slave trade
and the slave trade fuelled the Industrial Revolution.
It was a triangle of trade,
where goods were made right here where we stand
to trade for our ancestors.
Hence why today Caribbean people have European surnames,
including myself, including these two gentlemen.
And all this is testimony, you know, to the grizzly past
of the European doing dodgy business in trading man.
We should become intelligent enough
to learn about what happened to us.
Now we're born in opportunity and where there's laws here
to protect us as black people, we should take advantage of that.
If the youth are gonna join a gang,
I would suggest to join an academic gang.
Join an academic gang of bankers, solicitors, lawyers, OK?
Growing up, yeah, I ain't thinking about...
I'm gonna be in no gang with no bankers and that.
I wanna be with the mandem, innit? I wanna make P.
I wanna do this thing with my friends, innit? You get me?
Your friends who you grow up with. That's all it is, you know.
That can still happen.
I got my friends here.
My older friends, I will listen to them
as older brothers.
We are what we are. We're a product of our society.
We grew like this. This is just what we are.
We need to break free Get the fuck up out of these chains
Inside the game, B Mentally enslaving our brains
You think you've changed In reality you're still the same
Stuck in the game Bitch made
Mentally enslaved and that's life, nigger
That's life, nigger...
Nuggz did the same, as well, you know.
He come over and say, "It's true.
"I'm definitely down for it. Anything you need, I'll support it."
And that's life, nigger...
No one tells Nuggz what to do. He does what he wants to do.
So, if Nuggz wants to get on board, it's because Nuggz wants to.
Motherfucking cops on the block, yeah.
Undercovers.
A true Muslim knows that you can't harm your brother.
You can't kill your brother.
No bullshit. No gang-related bullshit.
So if a man's a Muslim, then a man's a Muslim. That's how it is.
Any beef he had before is done with. Gone.
Fear Allah, innit? And that's that.
And is it a way in prison in which people have come together,
who previously out on the block might have been shooting each other?
Yeah, cos they've got time to sit and read and reflect
and see what's what, innit?
Yeah, that's true.
They ain't got no time for no...
Well... they ain't got nothing to do. They're in jail, innit. Jail's jail.
Lockdown. Get me?
And why did Zimbo change his mind?
Kind of the same thing.
We are getting older. We've got kids.
Can't be running around gunning down men all your life.
So it's time for a change
and he could see the business side of it, as well.
Like, let's stop this. Let's come together and do something.
You have to show love to Shabba.
He started this. He's getting it going.
He's made it happen, innit?
Is it too late for the youths to go, huh?
I don't know.
It's never too late. Never too late. It ain't never too late.
It's never too late to grow
Cos I don't wanna feel the same no more
And I don't wanna feel the same
Kickin' back Getting lost in my thoughts
Thinkin' about the things I see and all the things I saw
Headin' down the wrong road And I couldn't change course
Used to wanna be a G But now this G wants more
Always in and out of court My life in the hands of a judge
Looking straight at me with hatred Cos I'm black and I'm young
18 and I'm going down for packing a gun
Misled by my olders I was slanging for funds
Still attackin' my lungs Weed smoke got me para
Celebrity, number Everybody in the manor
In this life I've never walked straight only ever stagger
Sober so I can't even blame the loose manner
Just like a weak bladder I was out of control
My fate's in my own hands What was I never told?
I'm livin' with no limit, limitless Now that I know
It ain't never too late to grow, grow
It's never too late to grow It's never too late to grow
Cos I don't wanna feel the same no more...
It's a question, innit?
Yeah, mate. Is it too late? Do you get me?
Question yourself and then you realise, innit?
I wanted to put the message out there that it's not too late, innit?
Ain't never too late, innit?
There's people that do shitty things all their life
and then, boom, they're inspired and their whole life changes, innit?
I had a dream last night that I was back in prison, bun that
I'd rather die so today I'm chillin'
They're tryin' to watch us like clockwork, mechanism
Give 'em the fingers up to show the fools that I can see them
I see straight through the plain clothes
I ain't wanted so I got no reason to lay low
I just wanna live my life good and raise dough
But they don't wanna see that so they're stoppin' my stage show
The roads are brake, bro So I'm tryin' to stick to my career
And I did this for Danio and Keya Daddy's here, yo
This is one to let the whole world know
It ain't never too late to grow
Niggers are never shown, man, the right shit.
For my generation growing up, yeah, everybody wanted a name.
If you didn't have a name, yeah, that means you're idiot, innit?
That's it, innit?
You're somebody or you're nobody. You get me?
Whereas now, I can stand up and prevent things. You get me?
I can say, "Yo, listen, allow that. Allow that cos that's gas."
I talk to the youth all the time.
Allow the gang thing, but it's dumb. Don't make no sense.
You're not gonna get nowhere from it.
My little cousin is dead
and he paid the maximum penalty, innit?
I kind of blame myself sometimes, as well.
Cos he's following me, innit? He's following me.
I'm the oldest cousin. I'm the oldest out of the lot of us, basically.
So, obviously, it's like, when I do certain things,
then the rest follow, innit?
It's never too late to grow It's never too late to grow
Cos I don't wanna feel the same...
I sit down in, like, the studio.
I'm sitting down in the studio with the so-called "bwoy dem".
Was that the first time you'd ever been in a room
with Burgers and Johnson?
Yeah, the first time in my life and I was a bit uneasy.
I have to sit down and think, "Is everything really cool here?"
And then they will come over and everything was kind of relaxed.
It was an experience.
You just realise, "Hold on. He's just like me, innit?"
They talk the same. They think the same.
He's not my enemy. These guys ain't my enemy.
But that was another wake-up call. Like, come on.
This is so trivial. It's so foolish, so unbelievable.
This is how it's supposed to be
and that's the dream now, innit, to make it always like that.
That's how they're supposed to live. Together.
And I don't wanna feel the pain
It's never too late to grow
Cos I don't wanna feel the same no more
And I don't wanna feel the pain
- My dawg. - That's what I was about to say.
My brother from another mother.
We're like that, innit?
So, that's just all it is.
So say no more, innit? A real brother, innit?
Shabba. It's just Shabba, innit?
He's just taking me as it comes, innit?
There's nothing more to it. It's just Shabba.
I can't complain and that.
It's not exactly the truce that we wanted, you know,
to kind of make history, have some form of truce, bring people together.
But it's still a way of bringing people together.
We've got mandem on the soundtrack, we've got mandem in the same studio,
we've got people talking, so it is progress.
We've come a long way.
We can look and say, "I'm living good."
For once, I'm living good.
I've got to analyse a lot of stuff I've been through, I've grown up in
and analyse the whole situation.
I've come to realise it isn't...
Everybody's always blaming each other.
You have to blame yourself, man. This is your life.
So you have to live it and I have to be all I can be.
You understand it? And that's what I've learnt.
I've watched a lot of people spend a lot of time saying,
"It's this person. We're blaming that person."
When I wake up in the morning, I do what I wanna do, innit?
So when I wake up in the morning, whatever I do,
that's the life I'm gonna be living.
So it's my decision, my choice.
So, me, I'm gonna try and do the right thing.