"Stop Snitching" has gone overseas.

After the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Sierra Leonian national at a south London estate last month, fliers started circulating the area that read: "No one likes a rat ... Be smart. Don't snitch."

The flyers were linked to a crude website that tells people not to trust Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime in London's black community, the BBC reports. When a reporter from one newspaper went to talk to residents, one said through her door: "These people have guns. Who will protect me?"

In November 2009, I switched places with a crime reporter from The Independent to examine comparisons being made there to Baltimore. In talking with government officials, residents, police and reporters, I found that though the country has one of the lowest murder rates in the world and even police are averse to carrying guns, gun crime was rising and as was the perception of crime. One politician likened the streets of Manchester to Baltimore as depicted in "The Wire."

Not surprisingly, I found there was little credibility to that comparison, but the fear was real. While intimidation against cooperating with police is nothing new in either place, it's causing great alarm that the anti-snitching sentiment in London has now been crystallized into a formal campaign much like Baltimore saw with the circulation of the "Stop Snitching" video in 2004.