Heartbreaking footage shows a grieving mother scrub her teenage son’s blood off the pavement after he was shot dead amid a wave of Bank Holiday violence in the capital.
Pretana Morgan carried a bucket of disinfectant and a brush to the spot where her son Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton was gunned down in Kennington on Saturday.
The 17-year-old aspiring architect had “so much potential”, she tearfully claimed as she called for an end violence in the capital.
Rhyhiem was discovered with critical injuries on Warham Street in Southwark on Saturday evening, after officers were called to reports of gunshots on nearby Cooks Road shortly after 6pm.
Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and London's Air Ambulance went to the scene, but the teenager was pronounced dead just before 7pm.
As she scrubbed the pavement, Ms Morgan told Sky News: "My son is not from the street, he only dropped here."
She added: "I couldn't have asked for a better son.
"My son was a very handsome boy. He's got so much potential."
She said he had gone to her home country of Jamaica last summer after a threat in London, and had just returned to the capital in February.
She said he had been "trying to make a difference" by learning to work with children.
"This is not life. My son's a good boy," she added, as she stood by a wall where Rhyhiem's provisional driving licence, a little bag of his baby teeth, and a photo of her feeding him when he was a baby were placed.
His murder came amid a spate of violence as London sweltered in near 30C heat over the bank holiday weekend.
A 13-year-old boy became an innocent victim as he was shot in the head while walking down the street with his parents.
The youngster was hit by the shotgun pellets in Harrow as a 15-year-old was attacked at around 1.15pm on Sunday in High Street, Wealdstone.
Both teenagers suffered non-life threatening injuries, and the younger one has been released from hospital.
Extra police officers, supported by armed units, patrolled the streets of London in a bid to combat the bank holiday violence.
A 43-year-old was stabbed in Perivale, north-west London, on Sunday night after a dispute about driving.
Police said the man was attacked on Buckingham Avenue at around 9pm after a number of residents questioned a man in a blue car about the nature of his driving in the small residential street.
Meanwhile, three people were injured in a "noxious substance" assault following an altercation between two groups in Shacklewell Lane in Hackney, east London, at around 5.20am on Sunday.
Just before 6.30pm on Sunday, police were flagged down by a member of the public in New Cross Road, south east London, where a 22-year-old man was suffering from gunshot wounds.
The injured man was taken by ambulance to a central London hospital where his condition is not life-threatening, Scotland Yard said.
In a fourth Bank Holiday weekend shooting in the capital, a 30-year-old man - who may have been working as a delivery driver - was gunned down.
Police were called at 4.50pm on Monday to a shooting in John Williams Close, in New Cross, south east London, Scotland Yard said.
The victim was treated at the scene before being taken to hospital. His condition is not believed to be life-threatening.
