It seems an awful lot of armed police of various types and varieties to have gone almost un-noticed outside of the immediate area of this so called siege.

Since Thursday morning a small area of Hackney has been closed off. There are rooftop snipers, armed officers on the all sides of this one man's flat situated in Graham Rd, Mare St end, Hackney E8. Residents in the immediate area of the property have been evacuated.

It seems, however, a little excessive given the circumstances (one lone man, holed up in a single flat). The official line given by the Police is as follows:

On Thursday morning police officers noticed a car that they suspected of being involved in another incident (maybe a robbery in the west end where a police officer was shot at?). The started to tow the car away. A man appeared at a window and berated them. They summoned the Met's S019 Unit (Armed Response Unit). When they arrived and tried to enter the flat, they say they were shot at and they retreated. No Police officer was injured. And the siege began.

Local residents however report hearing a lot of gunfire, which contradicts with this story. A BBC spokesperson confirmed tonight on the phone that the police now admit having fired 'a few times'.

The siege has closed off Graham Road and Sylvester Road. There are about 100 officers many of them armed. Rooftop snipers have their guns trained on the property from all sides. There also ground based marksmen, officers in full body armour and dog handlers all working round the clock surrounding this one property. There are fire engine crews, police control lorries and fleets of ambulances.

All of the beat officers guarding the cordoned off streets are from outside of Hackney and have very little idea of what is going on. They are therefore, not really able to explain to residents what is going on.

The firepower deployed and the scale of the siege seems unusually excessive. The media coverage for such a large scale and long event seems to be unusually low.

Last night, officers used the police tannoy system to speak directly to the man. They called him Elie and implored him to speak to them, to let them know he was ok.

The man has been reported to be in his early 30s, black and not a local resident of Hackney. he may have been injured in the inital exchange of fire on Thursday morning.

Police officers have tried to dissuade anyone except from press from filming or photographing the event even from behind official police lines.

It seems events like this, as long as they are in working class areas, can be deemed so normal as to not worth covering or paying attention to. Normal it is not.