Bailiff and housing official shot as they tried to evict tenant
A bailiff and a housing association official have been shot as they tried to evict a tenant with rent arrears.
The bailiff was shot in the leg and a female housing officer was injured when the man opened fire at a flat in Brixton, south London.
The injured, a 59-year-old woman and a man in his 60s, were taken by ambulance to a south London hospital where their condition is described as serious although not life threatening.
Armed police attended the scene and an unarmed man was arrested a short time after. It is understood a gun was found at the address.
A second female housing officer who was accompanying the pair escaped uninjured.
A spokeswoman for Metropolitan Housing Association said: "We can confirm that a male bailiff working on behalf of Metropolitan Housing and a female collection officer have been injured trying to evict a tenant today.
"The bailiff was shot in the leg and is serious condition although thankfully it is not life threatening.
"He was accompanied by two housing officers, both female, one of which has also suffered an injury.
"We do not know at this stage how she came by her injury. It may be she was shot, it may be that the bullet ricochet off the bailiff and onto her. We don't know.
"The man was being evicted from the property because he owed money in rent arrears. It is not clear yet how much that is.
"Nobody enjoys being evicted but thankfully it is very rare that someone pulls a gun out. We don't know at this stage if there was an argument or whether the tenant became agitated.
"We also cannot say if the man lived in the property alone or not. We are working with police to get to the bottom of what happened."
Armed police raced to the scene after the shooting in just before 10am and forced their way into the property.
They forced their way into a flat in the street and arrested a man. He was unarmed but officers later found a gun at the address.
An eyewitness described how she saw the wounded woman being carried into the ambulance as armed police cordoned off the street.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "There were policemen with the big machine guns. I heard them shouting 'Put your hands in the air' at someone round the coroner. I couldn't see who they were shouting at, but they were hiding, crouched, behind one of the houses,
"That's when I went back into my house because I was terrified."
The woman added that she had spotted the victims as she walked down Strathleven Road earlier in the morning.
She said: "I was walking to the doctors at around ten past nine when I noticed three people trying to get into a house. I didn't think they were trying to break in as they were stood around looking relaxed.
"I thought at the time that they had maybe been locked out as the man at the door looked like a locksmith…
"They were still there when I was on my way back from the doctors around half an hour later when I noticed that two of them were carrying papers.
"It looked like it could have been an eviction and the woman made a comment about a smell coming from the house.
"I thought nothing of it and went home, but then I heard the helicopter."
She added: "I can't believe it happened just after I'd gone passed. A couple of minutes later and I could have been there. "
Metropolitan is a registered social housing charity which provides and manages low cost homes.
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