THE 16-year-old boy injured in a double shooting at a bookmakers shop has died.

Louis Brathwaite was hit in the chest, shoulder and leg following what is being treated as a targeted attack at the end of last month.

Following a spell in intensive care when doctors feared the worst, the teenager's condition appeared to improve.

But police have today confirmed that he died yesterday Sunday afternoon.

Louis's grandmother told the M.E.N: "It is all very sad" but refused to discuss the tragedy any further.

Today as police mounted a murder inquiry, community representatives reacted with shock and sadness to the news that yet another young person has lost their life to gun crime.

The shooting happened inside the William Hill betting shop on Mauldeth Road West in Withington on January 29.

An eighteen-year-old shot in the stomach and torso as part of the same attack remains in a stable condition in hospital.

Today Raymond Bell from community action group CARISMA said he was shocked to hear the teenager, who was known to the police, had lost his life and that he hoped the news did not spark a revenge attack.

He said more work needed to be done by those living within the communities affected by gun crime to find out what made otherwise normal teenagers transform themselves into gangsters willing to take someone else's life.

He said: "We need to do some research to find out what triggers otherwise normal young people to transform themselves in this way. It's not something you can do from afar with outside agencies, it needs to be done by people within the community.

Anti-establishment

Mums and dads need to take a look at their children. We need to find out why young people are becoming anti-establishment. We need to get them back into the community and persuade them not to destroy it and tear it up."

Jackie Fetherston from the Mothers Against Violence group, whose 19-year-old son Fabian Flowers died from a gunshot wound in February 2004, said: "It is heartbreaking. I heard the news while I was on my way to work this morning. It made me feel sick. My heart goes out to his family and his mum.He is just a baby."

She said the Government needed to introduce harsher sentences for those involved in gun crime.

"Young people think they are untouchable and invincible. We need to start working within the primary schools to get to them before they are excluded and get onto the downward spiral which leads to this," she added.

Police believe the gunman, who had his face covered, fired five shots inside the betting shop. After the shooting he ran away from the area with a second man.

The attack came four days after another shooting incident outside the Lucky Star takeaway on same parade of shops on Mauldeth Road West at about 8.50pm on January 25. Police believe the shootings are linked, but despite stepping up patrols in the area and mounting a re-appeal for witnesses a week after the two teenagers were injured, no-one has been arrested as part of the investigation.

A post mortem investigation to determine the exact cause of Louis's death is expected to take place today.

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