Tears flow freely as Liverpool grieves !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: The Guardian
August 1, 2005 Author: Martin Wainwright

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...."We cannot change our colour. We have been asked not to say too much by the police while they investigate Anthony's murder but there are a lot of questions that need asking."

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It was typical of Anthony Walker, according to his many friends, that he walked the extra mile to see his girlfriend safely to her bus as night fell on the Huyton suburb of Liverpool and drinkers spilled out of the local pubs.

But it was a natural care and courtesy which cost the life of the gentle young Christian, a would-be lawyer planning for university after A-levels next summer, when he was jumped by a racist gang and left dying with a hatchet embedded in his head.

There were immediate, sickened comparisons with the murder in London 12 years ago of Stephen Lawrence, another quiet and high-achieving black student, but two fundamental differences were clear by last night. Merseyside police unhesitatingly classified the killing as racist, raided three houses in Huyton at 7am yesterday and are now questioning an 18-year-old on suspicion of murder. Their crimeline has been inundated with calls from local people.

Stunned revulsion was everywhere in the neat, leafy streets yesterday and a constant succession of neighbours, overwhelmingly white and many in tears, queued to lay flowers at the entrance to McGoldrick Park, where the 18-year-old was killed.

Alyssa and Summer Watson stole up quietly with their father to leave a spray and a felt-tipped poem, covered with clingfilm to keep off the rain.

"It's so, so sad," it read. "We have lost a lovely lad. Why must Good suffer at the hands of the Bad?"

Then they crossed themselves, and made way for another couple of white teenagers, Sonia and Donna Cashman, and the local Labour MP, Eddie O'Hara, who lives less than 100 yards from where Anthony fell.

"He was so nice," said 17-year-old Donna. "Quiet but really lovely. So keen on his work and his plans for doing law." Mr O'Hara was still trying to come to terms with the shattering of Huyton's name as a close and friendly community.

"We have only as very small black and ethnic minority community here," he said. "And they're locally known, appreciated - and I would say, loved."

But not by everyone, particularly, neighbours fear, in the drink-fuelled culture of small numbers of mostly young people, derided as "total idiots" by their contemporaries on the St John's Estate.

"There are some people - I don't know them - who do really stupid things. They should be locked away," said a young roofer, who like everyone else in the neighbourhood knew Anthony. "He'd never have harmed a fly and most people knew his girlfriend. The one he went out with before was white too, and no-one made anything out of that."

Eddie Jackson, a retired telecom engineer whose garden is within sight of the roped-off murder scene, said gangs congregated in the park late at night. "We've two park-keepers, Ian and Howard, and they've told me about it," he said. It is the one down side to a road so settled that no one has moved out for 25 years.

Anthony's walk with his girlfriend, a fellow student at Knowsley Sixth Form College, was routine, to get her on the 11.30pm bus for a 10-minute ride to her home in Kirby. But on Friday, along with a 17-year-old cousin of Anthony's, they were subjected to a stream of racist abuse from a hoodie-wearing youth as they waited for the 192 service opposite the Huyton Park pub.

The pub has an ambivalent reputation locally - a neighbour of Mr Jackson's said: "Put it this way: you can go in there and have a quiet drink, but if you're looking for trouble, it'll find you."

To avoid confrontation, the three young people decided to cut across McGoldrick park to pick up the bus in the centre of old Huyton village.

Witnesses have told police that two men were seen talking to the racist abuser very soon afterwards, and then up to four white men using a car cut off the group just before they reached the edge of the park.

Anthony's girlfriend and cousin ran for help and local people rushed to the scene, but it was too late to save him. He died at 5.25am at Walton specialist neurological centre after transfer from Whiston hospital.

Police are understood to have descriptions of a car and film from a CCTV camera which covers the gang's probable escape route.

Family and friends from all over the country, meanwhile, converged on Anthony's family home, where three days ago he was leaping up as usual to drop balls through the wall-fixed basketball net.

"He lived for his basketball," said 43-year-old Ann Fall, whose house is next to door to the Walkers. "The best neighbours you could ever wish for - they've been here 10 years and they've never had any trouble. It is devastating to think that I will not see his smiling face anymore."

Anthony had played in trials for the Liverpool and England basketball teams, but he had built up many other interests in his 18 years.

He had the self-confidence to be an Arsenal fan in football-mad Liverpool - the team's red shirt was draped above the pile of flowers - and he was a very active member of the Grace Christian church in inner-city Toxteth, where he helped at Sunday school and played in the band.

More than 40 singing and praying members of the Grace congregation held a service at the family's home yesterday before Anthony's sister Dominique, 20, paid tribute to him.

On behalf of their mother and sisters Donna, 29, Stephanie, 26, Angella, 16 and brother Daniel, 14, she mourned "someone you could not think of without smiling".

"Everyone who came into contact with him loved him. No one has ever said anything negative about him. He blessed so many lives in his unique way," she said.

Anthony's mother, Gee Verona, added: "My son was killed purely because of the colour of his skin. This is absolutely terrible.

"We cannot change our colour. We have been asked not to say too much by the police while they investigate Anthony's murder but there are a lot of questions that need asking."

Merseyside's assistant chief constable, Bernard Lawson, said: "Anthony was a young Christian and wanted to be a lawyer, but those dreams for him and his family are now dashed.

"We are absolutely determined to bring to find those who are responsible and bring them to justice."

[AMAT-ALLAH]

<--You know why im laughing Dannyeer!

Seriously though, walahay its soo tru, the whole city was silenced but almost not shocked that it didnt happen sooner, coz that area is not only 17-20 mins where i live, but its sooo rascist that you cant even do ur shopping in any of the stores near that bloody place. And what scares every puddlian is that you know the kid some how, he is actually a close friend of my brothers friends <---see how closly we are all connected!