The suspects were among 15 arrested by armed police in a raid. At least seven people have been shot dead in the past nine months and fears have grown that Manchester is descending into a spiral of violence similar to the Eighties era of gangland turf wars, which earned it the nickname "Gun-chester".In the latest police operation, armed officers raided a house in the Moss Side area of the city and arrested eight men and seven women who are believed to be their wives and girlfriends A firearm was also recovered. The raid is said to have followed an anonymous call from a man who dialled 999 and claimed that a hostage was being held at the address, in Ruskin Avenue. Covert observation specialists watched the house and armed officers were called to the area.Several members of the "Gooch" and "New Gooch" drug gangs were thought to have entered the building.Greater Manchester Police said yesterday that three of the men arrested were "wanted for questioning in connection with murders that have taken place in the last six to nine months in the Moss Side area". One senior detective said: "We have been after these people for a long time. This is a significant breakthrough in our inquiries."In the most recent case Gabriel Egharevba, 17, was killed by a shot to his head shortly before 10pm on 14 January in Longsight, an inner-city area, by a gunman and his accomplice firing from a motorcycle. Residents ran to help the teenager and found him bleeding heavily. Detectives said the victim, who had been going to his mother's house on a mountain bike, was not regarded as a gang member.In the second case Simon Brown, 27, was shot in the head at a community centre at the end of a Christmas party.
Police have been investigating claims that he might have unwittingly crossed a hardened criminal.Brown was ambushed by a group of men on a crowded stairway of the Old Library Centre in Cheetham Hill as he was leaving the party with cousins and friends at 5.45am. One of the men pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head.Police said Brown had no involvement with drugs or gangs in Fallowfield, Manchester, where he lived.In the third killing, on Saturday 31 July, Martin Bennett, 25, a senior member of a gang, was shot in the chest as he walking through Moss Side in the early evening. He was bundled into a car and taken to hospital but died later. Shortly before the shooting, Bennett had been involved in what police say was a "minor fracas" outside a newsagent's shop .Detective Superintendent Tony Porter, commenting on Thursday's raid, said yesterday: "What has happened overnight demonstrates that if the community support us we are prepared to act immediately.". What does a guy have to do? He slew the dragon, saved the damsel, became the country's patron saint and they can't even set aside a day to celebrate his achievements. What does a guy have to do? He slew the dragon, saved the damsel, became the country's patron saint and they can't even set aside a day to celebrate his achievements. St George's Day falls on 23 April, but this year has been moved because no saint's day can be celebrated in the week either side of Easter Day.Unfortunately, the Church of England and the Roman Catholics cannot agree which day it should be instead. The Church of England has moved it to Tuesday, 2 May, the first free day after Easter but the Catholic Church has decreed it should be Friday, 5 May.To add to the confusion, the Scout Association has chosen Sunday, 30 April, when it will hold its national celebration at St George's Chapel in Windsor, but has approved local events during three weeks.
This is despite a theological law forbidding the commemoration of saints on Sundays, apart from St Patrick, whose day is never moved from 17 March.The Ven John Barton, Archdeacon of Birmingham, said: "You cannot celebrate the passion of Jesus Christ and the resurrection if a saint's day gets in the way. A saint's day is of much less importance."Chris McGovern, a member of the Royal Society of St George, said there was no reason to move the day. "It's another sign that St George is no longer commemorated as he should be," he said."I have been to several St George's lunches in the last couple of weeks, but I will still be celebrating St George on Sunday," he said. "Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar but I don't think it is incompatible with St George."All this for a man who was not English and probably never even set foot on these shores. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says there is no evidence that he ever left the Middle East..
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