Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Oldbury, West Midlands.
The boy, who has not been named, died inside a house on Lovett Avenue on Thursday afternoon. The two teenage boys were arrested on Sunday and taken into custody for questioning, West Midlands police said.
A spokesperson for the force added: “The family of the 13-year-old boy who died are aware of the developments in our investigation. Our thoughts remain with them at this devastating time.”
Dozens of bunches of flowers, candles and soft toys have been left outside the semi-detached home.
Gurinder Singh Josan, the Labour MP for Smethwick, said he had been shocked by the news. “This is a tragic waste of a young life and my thoughts, prayers and condolences are with the family and friends of the young boy,” he wrote on X.
Malachi Nunes, a youth mentor in Sandwell at Ambitious Lives, a youth service provider, also visited the scene and said he knew of the family involved. “Nobody knows exactly what has happened. You get a lot of things like this round here. It’s just terrible,” he said.
Caroline Reid, a Dudley councillor, said her brother had been killed in 1998. “I came here to pay my respects and put flowers down,” she said. “I’ve lived this myself and even though it was 26 years ago, it still feels like yesterday and you relive it.”
She said she had come as a parent and neighbour to “pay respects”. “No one will understand what it is like unless you have walked those steps and been through it yourself,” she said. “There are no words. The grief is awful. This is someone who has lost a child. His poor mother, a part of her has gone.
“When you have lost someone like this, it is totally different to losing someone to illness. This is when you really know what loss is. When you lose a child, you feel their pain. It is just so sad.”
Reid added that the level of knife crime in the West Midlands was “awful”. She said: “It is so high – it’s boredom, there’s nothing for people to do, it’s the cost of living crisis. I felt it was my duty to come here and pay my respects.”
Source: theguardian.com
