Weapons amnesty after spate of South Yorkshire shootings
Police say they're taking the fight to armed criminals after a spate of shootings across South Yorkshire.
There are fresh efforts to take deadly weapons off the streets of South Yorkshire, after 3 separate shooting incidents across the county in the past fortnight.
Officers are launching a knife and gun amnesty next week to try to stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.
It'll take place in police stations across the county - and anyone handing a weapon in won't be prosecuted for possession.
SCI Steve Whittaker says the force are taking the fight to armed criminals:
“This is an opportunity for people to be free from any form of prosecution, to walk in to a police station. It could be an old relic from the First or Second World War, or it could be down to a firearm that someone has asked to keep safe some time ago.”
“We'd never want that firearm to get on to the streets of South Yorkshire, and certainly would never want that firearm to fall in to the hands of criminals.”
It comes as a woman was hospitalised in an alleged shooting in Barnsley in the early hours of yesterday morning.
There was also an alleged shooting in the Woodthorpe area of Sheffield a short time afterwards - police think it could be linked to an incident last week where shots were fired at a pub nearby.
DCI Whittaker's told Hallam officers need the public's help to tackle the issue of armed criminality:
"All too often we sometimes have a firearms discharge, and people sometimes rightly or wrongly don't want to get involved. It's for us all to get involved, and actually do what's right. If the right thing is to bring in a knife or a firearm, then please bring it in."
"Some people may have a firearm that they once owned lawfully, and now with recent change in legislation they're unlawfully owned; what we'd hate to do is for any of these that used to be lawfully held firearms to fall in to the hands of criminals."
"It's about removing that opportunity for someone to grab hold of a firearm, to think it's acceptable to use a firearm and to think it's acceptable to use a firearm unlawfully. We won't tolerate that, and we'll do everything we can. South Yorkshire's got a good track record of taking on armed criminality and we will continue to take the fight to the villain with a view to removing firearms from the streets of South Yorkshire."