Siege of Sidney Street

The Siege of Sidney Street, popularly known as the "Battle of Stepney", was a notorious gunfight in London's East End on 3 January 1911. Preceded by the Houndsditch murders in December 1910 where three police officers and one gang member were shot dead, it ended with the deaths of two members of a politically motivated gang of burglars and international anarchists supposedly led by Peter Piatkow, a.k.a. "Peter the Painter", and sparked a major political row over the involvement of the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill.