Attempted murder in Croydon

" TeenagerS " I think.
Shocking, shameful just appalling.

Shocking and saddening. The perpetrators deserve long sentences for such a cowardly attack.

The people arrested weren't teenagers.

Terrible. I know it is easy to generalise but I think Brexit and the manner of the Leave campaign has a lot to answer for.

These people are scum. When I think of the lovely Asian/ French / Polish etc families that live in my street I know who I'd rather have as neighbours.

Too easy a generalisation Antonia.

Maybe it is Anya. Apparently the victim is an Iranian Kurd asylum seeker, so this isn't directly related to Brexit. However, I can't help feeling that the referendum unleashed racism and the two have become convoluted in some people's minds. I expect we all remember the anti-EU posters of Syrian refugees, which had absolutely nothing to do with the EU.

I saw a woman being interviewed on TV who said this was very surprising. That's a load of rubbish. This area is full of violent gangs. No wonder people hesitated to interfere.

Here's a report from just a few weeks ago of a 14 year old being stabbed in the neck

These are just thugs looking for someone to hate. Croydon has one of the highest rates of gang violence in London

That's not really the point. I have no idea what the motive was behind the stabbing of the schoolboy, but it seems clear that the motive behind the attack on the Kurd was racist.

Are you suggesting that being a thug excuses racism? Sorry, I don't really see your point.

Don't be so narrow minded. Racism and racist attacks were everywhere before Brexit. In fact most of these gangs split along racist lines too. Asian gangs, black gangs, white gangs. Of course the attack was racist - these are uneducated thugs after all.

But there are some people on this forum who will use even a nasty racist attack to further there political beliefs re Brexit. Find that disgusting.

So when I replied to Antonia that he remark was 'too easy a generalisation* that was exactly right. But if you want to simply make political capital of it, then go ahead.

Race and religious hate crimes rose 41% after EU vote - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37640982

Oh no, I found some statistics suggesting that hate crimes are related to the Referendum, I must be a left wing, anti British, anti democratic, negative Remoaner. ...Some of the people who post on these forums would be right up there with the authoritarian governments of Nazi Germany, Maoist China, Communist Russia and others.....Re education camps coming your way soon, repeat after me....The United Kingdom was a perfect, harmonious country in the past when people knew their place, when the Globe was pink and the nations we enslaved were grateful for our intervention and black people were only good for exchanging with the Americas for rum and sugar, oh yes and bring back the birch! Hmrph, Hmrph.

Calm down dear!

The police have said it is a racist crime. What was even more distressing was to hear some people stood and watched, yet some people did try help after the attack.

Looking at your stats I'm rally pleased to note that these abhorrent crimes decreased to pre-referendum levels with a couple of months.

That's such good news.

Really not rally

This was an appalling and sickening attack whatever the motive. We all hope those guilty are brought to justice.

As one who voted Leave, I feel this disgust as much as any who voted Remain.

I think it would be helpful if we all now understood that Brexit itself is not racist and that those who voted Leave are not all racist, indeed, they are mainly not racist. This would do 2 things. It would put an end to the stereotype that people voting Leave were all racist (gullible and stupid) and it might inhibit those who are racist from believing that they have some kind of endorsement for this terrible behaviour.

There are many things that most Remain and most Leave voters have in common. Disgust at violent racism is one of them.

Photographs in the news on line suggest some in the murderous group were Black British.
A horrific incident, let's hope the young man recovers physically and that his attackers get long prison sentences. This must have been attempted murder?

The full facts are still to emerge about this case, I know Croydon fairly well, I lived in the general area when I left home to share a flat in my early twenties. Of late it's notorious for it's gang culture, a high proportion of those gang members are black. I believe at least a couple of the suspects in this case are black, could that still make it a racist crime? Of course, gangs are often formed along ethnic lines and it doesn't follow that they are necessarily benovolent to incomers who are not the same ethnicity as them. I am not trying to preclude the possibility of saying white British gang members could also be involved. It's also a well known fact that the bone heads who patrol their so called turf crave "respect" and deference, quite what for God knows. What I do know is one of my closest friends who is black moved her and her son way down into the heart of Surrey from south London to ensure that her son was far away from an area that might have drawn him into gang culture and it was a srategy that worked for her.

Maybe in this unfortunate instance they honed in on this young man for some perceived slight, or maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever the reason it's shameful and appalling just as the murder of the Polish man by the white boys in Essex. Unfortunately their is no logical rationale among "savages" of all races who commit these deplorable acts and they are not acting on behalf of leavers, but on their own prejudices. I hope the young man recovers and is then re settled somewhere in England other than Croydon.

What has skin colour to do with racism?

Well said Anya Cunco and Terribull ( who has local knowledge) gangs are racist to each other, and in London, being Black (Carribean) will often put you at daggers drawn ( literally) with Black African gang members.This is no new thing, nor does it have anything at all to do with us leaving the EU, and anyone who seeks to push that particular agenda is ( as Arthur Daley may say) bang out of order.

Brave weren't they? Apparently eight of them attacked one young man. What also sickened me was that evidently about twenty people 'stood and watched'. How could anyone with a shred of humanity do that? In America they have a crime called 'depraved indifference' - perhaps that's one we need on our statute books.