Police commissioner Alan Billings insists Sheffield 'is a safe city' after fatal shooting
South Yorkshire's Police and Crime Commissioner has insisted that Sheffield is a "safe city" after a man was shot dead at a car wash.
Dr Alan Billings was speaking after police launched a murder investigation following the 21-year-old's death on Tuesday evening, 29 March.
He said: "Sheffield is a safe city. South Yorkshire is a safe county.
"These are rare events. Of course when they do happen they cause real distress and upset to a community and, of course, in this case, the whole city of Sheffield.
"But they are rare and we shouldn't lose site of that."
The latest incident comes after police launched an investigation last month over the attempted murder of a man who was shot at while in a Lamborghini in Sheffield.
Earlier this month three men were convicted over the fatal shooting of 30-year-old lawyer Khuram Javed in Sheffield last April.
In the last year there were at least 11 suspected homicides in the wider Sheffield area, including the deaths of a woman and three children at a house in Killamarsh.
Mubarak Egal, who works at a garage close to Tuesday's incident told ITV News the level of violence in the city was "shocking.
"This has to stop," he added. "People dying for no reason."
But Dr Billings said police were "getting on top of this" and "beginning to nail people".
He said: "Communities themselves will hold information, they know who people are that perpetrate this kind of crime, they know who have got serious weapons, who carry knives and so we need them to come forward and say more otherwise there will be more incidents of this kind."
He said a new armed crime team had been set up and more officers would be recruited in the next couple of years.
He said: "Also some of the perpetrators, the people who we suspect have got guns on them, or with them, or in their homes – all that is being targeted.
"I'm very pleased with what the force are doing I'm just very sorry that this has happened at this moment in time."