It was like a scene from a gangster movie.
As 17-year-old Tyler McDermott emerged into the night after a party, he was shot in the head at point-blank range before being slashed by a machete as he lay defenceless on the ground.
The shooter then took aim at Tyler’s teenage friend Kamali Lindo and missed before disappearing into the darkness.
It’s a killing that wouldn’t seem out of place in America’s gun capital Chicago, but Tyler, who was heavily involved in the music scene, was killed on the streets of north London in Tottenham.
Britain has some of the tightest gun controls in the world, but violent gangs and drug dealers are increasingly converting blank weapons in basements, garden sheds and bedrooms across Britain.
Four people were killed and 17 seriously injured with makeshift weapons last year, when more converted guns (64) were fired than real handguns (42).
In the last four years, cops have recovered 800 guns converted to fire live ammunition – and experts warn it’s young, reckless gang members who are the most likely to snap them up for use in trigger-happy shootings.
NCA deputy director Charles Yates told The Sun: “Your traditional organised criminal is probably going to think twice before using a firearm whereas your urban street gang is likely to more readily use them.”
Up until this year, the blank shooters could easily be bought by over-18s online or at fishing and shooting shops across Britain for just a few hundred pounds.
Criminal gangs make thousands converting them into live weapons by tampering with the blocked barrels of top-venting blanks bought mainly from Turkey, where gunfire is common at weddings and other celebrations.
Four makes of Turkish guns are now banned from the end of this month after the National Crime Agency – Britain’s version of the FBI – proved how easily the Retay, Ekol, Ceonic ISSC and Blow blanks could be turned into deadly weapons.
Around 10,000 are believed to be in circulation across the UK after mainly being bought for use in movies, at sports events or coveted by collectors.
Owners now have until February 28 to hand them in to police stations across the country or risk up to 10 years in jail.
Charles Yates told The Sun: “Criminals would ideally like to get their hands on a firearm like a Glock because that’s what they’ve seen on TV but they can’t necessarily get hold of one, so they’re having to make do with what they can get their hands on.
“They identified that these top venting blank firearms could be converted with some relative ease and they still end up killing people.
“They look authentic, particularly if they’re painted black and have a trigger mechanism and magazine that contains bullets, just as a normal firearm has.
“They pose a significant threat.”
Senseless killing
Victim Tyler, pictured as an innocent schoolboy, was leaving a music recording studio in the early hours of April 13, 2023, when he was shot and stabbed after a row over filming inside the premises.
The shooter Tyrese Barnett, 20, of Newham, London, and Leo Reid, 21, from south-west London, who slashed Tyler with a machete, tried to flee Britain but were caught by cops at Heathrow Airport with one-way tickets to Jamaica.
In a victim impact statement at the Old Bailey, Tyler’s sister Zara said: “I will never understand why these boys did what they did; however hard I try, I cannot forgive them.”
Barnett was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 30 years while Reid, also convicted of murder, will serve at least 22 years.
Two accomplices Rhys Antwi, 20, of Lambeth, London, who was armed with a sword hidden underneath his clothes, and Kalam Bagge, 19, who carried a knife, were also given life.
Indiscriminate violence
Tyler is far from the only victim.
Drug dealer Justice McCann, 22, shot an innocent stranger in the chest with a converted Turkish-made Retay in Luton, narrowly missing his heart.
He was jailed for 22 years after his victim, known only as Jakob, spent two weeks in hospital and later returned to Poland saying the attack – featured on Channel 4’s 24 Hours in Police Custody – had destroyed his life and left him too scared to leave his home.
Police found there was no motive for the shooting in August 2019.
Illegal gun factory
Cops and National Crime Agency bosses have made several big busts on outlaws converting guns.
Earlier this month, Londoner Luke Parr, 23, was jailed for 10 years after police found he was making firearms in his garden shed in Dagenham.
In January, the head of an organised crime group who sold guns and ammo across the UK was jailed for 30 years alongside two of his associates.
Ashley Latimer-Basil, 36, his brother Michael, 39, and Robert Kenna, 35, had key roles within a network which converted blanks to sell to gangsters.
The Cambridgeshire trio were given a combined 68 years and nine months.
Assistant Chief Constable Tim Metcalfe, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for the criminal use of firearms, warned gangsters that more fake guns will be tested with a view to making them illegal.
He said: “There are numerous other models out there which we feel are slightly harder to get hold of, but will be testing them in the next few months.
“This amnesty is the public’s chance to stop weapons like this falling into the wrong hands.
“In the last two years, policing and the NCA have disrupted several gangs making these pistols into live weapons and one investigation recovered more than 400 converted guns.”
Around 1,000 weapons have been handed in to police stations around the UK as part of the month-long amnesty.
