A 15-year-old boy has become the latest victim in a spate of violent crime after being stabbed to death in Wolverhampton.
The teenager, who has not yet been named, was found with serious injuries after police were called to reports of a disturbance between a group of youths on Tuesday night.
Residents described how they rushed to try help the victim, who appeared to have suffered multiple stab wounds following the attack just after 11pm on Langley Road, in the Merry Hill suburb of south-west Wolverhampton.
He was the fourth teenage boy to be fatally stabbed in the past seven days in England.
Detectives from West Midlands police cordoned off part of Langley Road and were viewing CCTV to try to trace those responsible for the killing. The force said the boy’s family had been informed and were being supported by specially trained officers.
A local resident, who did not wish to be named, said he and his neighbours tried to save the boy’s life after they found him lying in a pool of blood.
“We heard it about 11pm – to us it was someone breaking into our car, banging and smashing into our car. So we looked out the window quick to see what was going on,” he told the Birmingham Mail.
“My wife called the police straight away. When we looked back out he was sitting up and rolling over. That’s when I went out into the road with him. That’s when we saw a man lying in the middle of a road, surrounded by blood.
“When I got to him he wasn’t talking or nothing, just mumbling in pain on the floor. We were on the phone to the ambulance saying ‘hurry up, quick as you can, there’s blood everywhere.’ It was around five to 10 minutes later, there was four of us outside by then, when the ambulance turned up.”
DCI Chris Mallett said: “A young boy has tragically been killed and we are determined to find out why this has happened. We are talking about the terrible loss of a 15-year-old boy, someone who had their life to live, and we will be working round the clock to find who was responsible.
“We are following a number of active lines of inquiry and would urge anyone with information which could assist our enquiries to call us as soon as possible.”
Last week there were fatal knife attacks on boys aged 15 and 19 in Sheffield and a 17-year-old boy in Northampton.
In the week ending 22 May, four men died from fatal knife wounds in London, taking the capital’s suspected murder toll this year to 65. The toll is on course to reach its highest annual total since 2003.