British Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is in critical condition after being shot in the head in London, her political party said on Sunday.
“It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has been brutally attacked and sustained a gunshot wound to her head,” the Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP) said in a statement. “She is currently in intensive care and in a critical condition.”
The party said the attack happened “following numerous death threats as a result of her activism.”
London’s Metropolitan Police responded to reports of gunfire in southeast London about 3 a.m. local time Sunday morning, it said in a statement.
Police said paramedics transported a 27-year-old woman with gunshot wounds to a south London hospital, and that the incident appeared to have happened near a house party in Southwark.
The police statement said that at this early stage of investigation there was no evidence to suggest a targeted attack or that the woman “had received any credible threats against her prior to this incident.”
Detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command (Trident) are conducting an investigation and looking to speak with anyone who was at the party in the Consort Road area of London, it added.
“A dedicated team of detectives is working tirelessly to identify the person or persons responsible for this shooting,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jim Tele. He added that “they need the public’s help,” and urged people to come forward if they witnessed or had heard information about the incident.
Tele added that while he recognized the incident “will have shocked those in the local community and further afield” he called on the public to “avoid speculating as to the motive or the circumstances behind it.”
Johnson rose to prominence last year during the Black Lives Matter protests, as a leader of the TTIP, which has been called “Britain’s first Black-led political party.”
She is a mother of three, and also works to deliver food and groceries to families in need, according to the party, which called her “a strong, powerful voice for our people and our community” in its Sunday statement.
Claudia Webbe, a Member of Parliament for Leicester East, took to Twitter to express her “love and solidarity” to Johnson’s family and friends following the incident.
Webbe said news of the shooting was “shocking” and that “all women should be safe on our streets” in a post.
“When I think of the brutal shooting of Sasha Johnson it reminds me that the culture of gun violence is all-consuming affecting whole communities & neighbourhoods. The bullet does not discriminate in its effect. But too many women become collateral damage in this ‘culture of fear,'” Webbe said in a separate tweet.
