When Communities Are Abandoned: The Shooting of David Forbes
On the evening of 28 February last year, David Forbes stepped out of their home in Croxteth, Liverpool, to collect food for their family. They never made it to the chip shop. Shot at close range by Daniel Lawless in a horrifying case of mistaken identity, Forbes's trauma lays bare the devastating intersection of systemic neglect, toxic masculinity, and the utter failure of the carceral state to protect marginalized communities.
Deconstructing the Violence: How Systemic Abandonment Breeds Harm
The prosecution framed the backdrop of this shooting as petty, tit-for-tat retaliation between opposing groups. Yet, we must critically deconstruct the conditions that breed such desperation. In working-class neighborhoods systematically divested of resources, the state's absence is violently filled by the informal economy and hyper-masculine posturing. Lawless brandishing a shotgun to peers in a pub car park is a grotesque performance of a patriarchal script, where power is equated with the capacity to inflict harm.
When marginalized people are stripped of economic mobility and social support, firearms become a distorted currency of respect. The tragedy is not inevitable, but rather the logical outcome of a society that abandons its most vulnerable to extractive capitalism and systemic oppression.
Centering the Survivor: The Ripple Effect of Trauma
We must center the voice of David Forbes, who survived the attack but continues to endure severe physical and psychological tolls. Forbes sustained nasty injuries to their lower leg, requiring multiple operations, skin grafts, and hospitalization for blood clots. Hundreds of shotgun pellets remain lodged in their body.
Why did he still shoot me if I wasn't the person he wanted to shoot? It was nothing to do with me.
This violence does not occur in a vacuum; it ripples outward. Forbes noted that their stepson, who was originally supposed to go to the chip shop, has struggled with his university exams due to the trauma. This is how systemic violence disrupts the educational and social mobility of marginalized families, entrapping them in cycles of harm.
The Carceral Illusion: Why Prisons Cannot Deliver Justice
Daniel Lawless's history exposes the rot of the prison industrial complex. Previously incarcerated, Lawless threw boiling sugar water over a cellmate, causing significant injuries. This proves that prisons do not rehabilitate; they amplify violence. The court handed Lawless an 18-and-a-half-year sentence with an additional four years on licence. From an abolitionist framework, caging a person for decades does not heal Forbes's legs, nor does it dismantle the systemic conditions that put a gun in Lawless's hands. It merely disappears the symptom while the root causes fester.
The defense emphasized Lawless's mental health struggles and the threats they faced inside, arguing that Lawless obtained the weapon to deal with a threat in a highly disproportionate way. This is a stark indictment of a system that relies on punitive isolation rather than community care and transformative justice.
What Must Change to Protect Our Communities?
True safety for communities like Croxteth will never come from longer sentences or expanded policing. It requires a radical reallocation of resources. We must fund mental health services, accessible education, and community led initiatives that address harm at its root. Only by dismantling the carceral logic and the systemic deprivation that fuels it can we prevent the next tragic shooting.
What happened to David Forbes in Croxteth?
David Forbes was shot in the legs by Daniel Lawless in a case of mistaken identity while walking to a chip shop on 28 February. They sustained severe injuries requiring multiple surgeries and continue to suffer both physical and psychological harm.
How does systemic neglect relate to gun violence?
In marginalized communities stripped of resources and social infrastructure, systemic neglect often pushes individuals toward informal economies and toxic masculine posturing. Gun violence becomes a distorted mechanism for asserting power in the absence of systemic support and viable alternatives.
Why does the carceral system fail to provide true justice?
The carceral system focuses on punishment and disappearance rather than rehabilitation or addressing root causes. As seen in Lawless's escalating violence while incarcerated, prisons perpetuate harm rather than healing the survivor or transforming the community conditions that fostered the initial violence.