![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/2017-prod-yamacia-productions-like-396891521.jpg\")
\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/ac-birmingham-27nov-map.jpg\")
\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/2021-court-heard-teen-shot-861734945.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA CHILLING gang war has exploded in the UK where brutal underworld figures are fast becoming the modern-day Peaky Blinders.<\/p>\n
A notorious underworld crew called Armed Response is bringing bloodshed to Birmingham's streets – just as the savage criminal gang did decades ago.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
The gang formed in the 2010s, with police nabbing a 20-year-old rapper in 2016 who had been baiting his rivals and \u201cgloried in the shootings\u201d through drill music videos on YouTube.<\/p>\n
"When we come round in that truck, them boys there they dash," rapper 'Lynch' says in one video, describing an attack on another group. <\/p>\n
Lynch, real name Reial Phillips, was initially jailed for 27 years in 2016 for his role in the 2015 shootings, but later had his sentence cut to 20 years. <\/p>\n
Armed Response's colour is understood to be red and their turf is on the west side of the A34, a city they share with the infamous Peaker Blinder gang. <\/p>\n
Just like the real-life Peaky Blinders, Armed Response uses extreme indiscriminate violence toward other gangs and even civilians on their turf as they seek to control the drug trade.<\/p>\n They are a splinter group of the black Brummie gang Burger Bar Boys, a 1980's crew who controlled the crack cocaine trade in the West Midlands and have now become the subject of a BBC podcast.<\/p>\n The increase in gang violence in the city has mirrored its other problems, with cuts to social services over the last decade and the Labour-run council going bankrupt earlier this year. <\/p>\n In 2015, the city of a thousand trades was ravaged by a series of shootings fueled by the rise in drill music, Birmingham Live reported.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The war left eight people with gunshot wounds, including a 16-year-old boy who was shot in the back outside a barbecue party.<\/p>\n And in 2017, the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew were banned from parts of Birmingham in a landmark ruling.<\/p>\n One gang member, Louis Clarke, 19, was jailed for life last week after an innocent 13-year-old boy was shot in the spine, leaving him permanently paralysed. <\/p>\n The gangster was the fourth jailed for the 2021 shooting.<\/p>\n Another of the foursome, Tafique Thomas, had pulled the trigger on the homemade 'slam gun' shotgun after the gang had chased the youngster through an underpass. <\/p>\n The slam gun looks like two pieces of metal pipe, one short and one long, but when used properly the makeshift gun can be just as deadly. <\/p>\n They don\u2019t have a trigger and instead work by a barrel being inserted into the main barrel connected to the butt. A shotgun cartridge is then inserted into the floating barrel which is pulled back sharply forcing the cartridge onto a firing pan.<\/p>\n The boy was only chased and shot because he had walked into the gang's territory on his way to get food with friends.<\/p>\n A third member then rapped about the shooting in a video released online in the subsequent days and appeared to express regret the boy survived. <\/p>\n "Hands on my head, now I'm f****** stressed, when I heard my man ain't in a casket," Zidann Edwards rapped. <\/p>\n The victim's mother labeled Clarke and the other gangsters "cowards" for the callous crime against her son. <\/p>\n Armed Response marked an evolution in the Birmingham criminal underworld concurrent with the popularisation of drill music from the south side of Chicago in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n Drill-inspired gangs were also forming around the world, like Western Sydney's OneFour in 2014, which recently starred in a Netflix documentary.<\/p>\n The new breed are willing to publicly attack their rivals and brag about their violent acts in their homemade drill numbers.<\/p>\n In 2021, violence erupted again in Birmingham with a brawl at a nightclub between Armed Response and their rivals, Goon Squad Army.<\/p>\n Goon Squad Army are themselves a splinter gang, emerging out of the Johnson Crew. <\/p>\n Goon Squad Army member Rikardo Reid, known as 'Stardom', was performing at the Levana bar when an Armed Response member spotted him.<\/p>\n A fight ensued with a bottle being thrown and Reid avoiding being stabbed by Armed Response's Shayne Campbell after Campbell slipped, giving Reid enough time to escape through a fire exit.<\/p>\n Six men were convicted for the melee, including Reid, who had tried to flee the country. He had already been convicted for selling drugs after a 2009 police sting. <\/p>\n Then, only two and a half months later, the four Armed Response gangsters tried to kill the 13-year-old in the brutal underpass attack. <\/p>\n Police released CCTV footage of the men leaving the underpass and running to a getaway car. <\/p>\n Gun offences in the region have also rocketed 86% \u2013 with 1,089 gun crimes in the 12 months to March\u00a0recorded, up from 584 the previous year, the Mirror reported. <\/p>\n West Midlands police launched Operation Target in response to the deteriorating situation in the city, as Birmingham surpassed London as the gun capital of the UK. <\/p>\n 100 officers have been placed into a gun squad to investigate gun recovery and discharges.<\/p>\n Operation Target has also seen success, West Midlands police say, with an ammunition maker and other organised crime figures nabbed as well a reduction in the number of guns fired.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/newspress-collage-nigbcytmq-1701082496068.jpg\")
<\/picture>CASH GRAB <\/span><\/p>\nCapt Tom's daughter pocketed \u00a318k to give out plaque but foundation got just \u00a32k<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/NINTCHDBPICT000786468007.jpg\")
<\/picture>SNOW GO <\/span><\/p>\nMet Office gives verdict on white Christmas as first snow flurries hit today\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Most read in The Sun<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/JW_GRACE_DENT_QUITS_V4_COMP.jpg\")
<\/picture>GRACE SPENT <\/span><\/p>\nGrace Dent QUITS I’m A Celeb ‘on medical grounds’ as fans spot moment she broke<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/newspress-collage-en6xnkgng-1701035825569.jpg\")
<\/picture>ROSE WHINE <\/span><\/p>\nI’m A Celeb in ‘sexism’ row as Nella Rose slammed over ‘toxic’ views about men<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/image-1391.png\")
<\/picture>WALTZ OFF <\/span><\/p>\nStrictly fans left baffled as ‘editing blunder’ is exposed during results show<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/newspress-collage-pehllqp9z-1701025738753.jpg\")
<\/picture>FOUND SAFE <\/span><\/p>\nGirl, 9, who vanished while walking a puppy has been ‘found safe and well’<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/reial-phillips-eighteen-men-two-685821528.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/2021-court-heard-teen-shot-861735020.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/tyrell-meikle-theo-white-shayne-862382893.jpg\")