
AI-generated summary
Grangetown and South Bank are deprived neighbourhoods still affected by the decline of heavy industry, with high police-recorded crime rates and long-standing warnings about insufficient police resources.
It is just after 8pm in Grangetown, near Middlesbrough, and the light is fading.
Two teenagers in balaclavas tear across a park on a muddy red quad bike, pulling wheelies as they pass a man walking his dog.
Younger boys, some not yet in their teens, gather excitedly around the bike.
We're here because Grangetown and neighbouring South Bank now find themselves at the centre of a large police operation, with fears organised crime is out of control after the deaths of two police officers and five young men in a car crash on the A66.
Suddenly one of our team is hit by a pellet, which appears to have been fired from the group. It stings but he's OK.
Then the quad riders pull over for a chat, engine running.
I ask the riders if it is normal to be driving around the park on a quad bike.
"Yeah, this isn't any special day," the passenger says. "You're born and bred and brought up with it. What do you expect? You don't know anything different."
Since the crash, more than 20 people have been arrested in Middlesbrough and the surrounding area as part of a wider operation into what police have called "serious and organised crime".
Sources say there are two feuding gangs at the centre of a spike in violence.
Is this area out of control, I ask the quad bike riders.
"No. Definitely not."
Then they reveal something we repeatedly heard from young people here. They do not trust the police.
"They're saying there are gangs, but there are no gangs," the driver says. "It's not London, mate. Do you know what I mean?"
Like many young people here, they blame the police for the deaths on the A66. The circumstances remain under independent investigation.
All but one of the residents who speak to us do so on the condition of anonymity. They are worried that showing their faces could place them or their homes at risk.
What message do the attacks send to people on this street, I ask one.
"Well, they should be scared, shouldn't they, that something's going to happen to their property if they say anything or get involved. So we don't."
Victoria, who moved here several years ago, says the escalating violence cannot be separated from the wider condition of the town.
"This is a social problem, especially in this area. Teesside has been massively neglected and ignored," she says.
The attack in Acklam is far from Middlesbrough's only recent case of a vehicle being used as a weapon. Back in May, a tractor was driven into a house on Priory Road, and since the A66 crash Cleveland Police has investigated at least two further rammings.
Detectives have also linked their wider investigation to a caravan fire on Attlee Road in Grangetown.
"It's getting worse," a nearby resident says. "They're always balaclava-ed up as well, do you know what I mean?"
He blames drugs.
"It can't be anything else. Why would you be like you are unless it was drugs?" he says.
Whether every incident is part of a single feud has not been established. But taken together, the rammings, fires and arrests have created a powerful sense that violence is being used to intimidate, punish and send messages.
What is most unsettling for these residents is the sense that nobody is fully in control.
Grangetown and South Bank are communities still living with the void left by the decline of heavy industry. Both now rank among England's most deprived neighbourhoods.
In South Bank, we see a group of teenagers tend three ponies tethered on the grass. Two perform wheelies on electric scooters while another uses a long stick to scatter rubbish.
On the adjoining estate, more than a dozen homes have boarded-up windows.
On a wall are the words "RIP 2UZZI", said locally to have been the nickname of Jakub Matusiak, who lived one street away.
One 17-year-old boy tells us he knew him. "He was my best mate," he says. "It's sad."
Elsewhere, three letters are repeated: "FTP" - an expletive directed at the police.
I ask the teenager if he would call the police if another young person approached him carrying a knife.
"No," he says. Before adding: "I've never needed the police in my life. I'd rather die than ring the police."
Again and again, the young people we speak to express a profound distrust of the police.
Cleveland's Chief Constable Victoria Fuller said what we'd heard was "horrifying".
"Yes, there are a small minority of people in the Grangetown area who blight those communities. But we will continue relentlessly to serve our communities."
The scale of the challenge facing the force and the community it serves is not new.
The area has some of the highest police-recorded crime rates in England and Wales.
Its leaders have been warning for years that its resources did not match the demands placed upon it.
But recent inspections show Cleveland is one of the most improved forces in England and Wales, with performance levels also judged to be some of the best in the country.
The force has recently arrested 87 people for offences linked to organised crime gangs and over the past two years 16 people have been jailed for such crimes.
Since the crash, more than 200 additional officers have been deployed in Middlesbrough and surrounding communities. Their immediate task is to suppress the violence and identify those directing it.
There is also the question of restoring order and rebuilding trust and confidence.
AI outlook โ possibilities, not facts
Continued police deployment will suppress violence in the short term
Likely ยท Within weeks
Efforts to rebuild trust between police and community will face significant challenges
Very likely ยท Within months

A Washington judge indicated he will rule quickly on whether to dismiss with prejudice an indictment against former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a case prosecutors admit lacks current grounds but wish to keep open for potential future charges if new evidence emerges, amid intense scrutiny from President Donald Trump who has publicly disputed the Justice Department's conclusion that damage resulted from flawed installation.
Romanian prosecutors have indicted social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate in absentia on charges including human trafficking, sex offenses involving minors, money laundering and witness tampering. The brothers, dual British-US citizens, are currently held in a US jail while contesting a British extradition request related to separate allegations involving seven alleged victims and 59 charges.

The Chuncheon District Court sentenced a man in his 30s to 10 months in prison and 2 years of probation for repeatedly stalking a teenager he had never met for several months at bus stops and city buses, and ordered him to undergo probation, 80 hours of community service, and 40 hours of stalking recidivism prevention lectures.
The Lindsay Clancy murder trial ended in a mistrial after jurors reviewed traumatic evidence including autopsy photos and emergency calls. Following dismissal, jurors received counseling resources as part of Massachusetts' juror mental health program, reflecting a broader effort in states like Pennsylvania to address psychological strain from jury service, especially in high-profile or distressing cases.
A Washington, D.C. judge appears ready to block prosecutors from recharging former Olympian David Hearn for damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after the U.S. Attorney's office admitted the damage resulted from a botched contractor installation, not vandalism, and acknowledged it cannot prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

A pulp mill in Longview, Washington, where 11 workers died in a May chemical tank collapse, had a history of safety complaints, poor maintenance, and toxic chemical discharges, according to state and federal records reviewed by The Associated Press. State inspectors had planned to interview workers about unrelated safety complaints the week of the accident, but the tank failed as the workday began. The mill, operated by Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co., had received 54 environmental violation notices since 2016 and over $41,500 in fines for serious violations. More than $2.4 million in workers' compensation claims have been paid for 169 injured employees since 2015. The U.S. Chemical and Safety Board found the company knew the tank was 'not fit for continued service' months before the failure but continued using it. A wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed by the mother of two brothers killed in the incident.