Great Depression, Anarchy, Burning Cities in America?
Expect rioting like London has now in America in the near future if Lawmakers can't figure out the formula to create new jobs and revenue for our Treasury. Simply put, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!” Last Friday Standard & Poors (S&P) dropped the U.S. Credit Rating from AAA to AA+, and stating its reasons in pertinent part: “The political brinksmanship of recent months,” the company said, “highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.” S&P also pointed to political reluctance to make cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, and Republicans’ refusal even to consider increasing revenues by, for instance, ending the Bush tax cuts. Read full S&P Overview of Downgrade.
Will Afghanistan & Iraqi War Veterans have to March on Washington, D.C., to get their Disability Compensation & other Benefits like World War One "Bonus Marchers" had to do just to get a $500 Bonus they were promised? On Monday, August 08, 2011, the Dow Jones Industrials (DJI) dropped 5.55% or 634.76 points to 10,809. It was the first time the DJI was below 11,000 since November or December of 2008. As previously stated in a recent story, the Bush 43 tax cuts for the Rich are still in place and yet we have “real unemployment” of over 15% or over 24-Million unemployed. Increases of around 125,000 jobs a month are needed to keep the unemployment rate steady, while about 200,000 a month would bring it down a percentage point over a year. Only 117,000 jobs were created last month. So until the Treasury gets more Revenue from payroll taxes, we need let the tax cuts for the Rich expire and raise taxes for Millionaires and Billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes, which they are not doing at this time due to loop holes created for them in the tax code system. So just cutting the Budget, especially the entitlement programs without a formula to raise Revenues will not stimulate the economy into recovery, especially in creating more jobs so Americans can pay their bills, buy food for themselves and their families, not be evicted or foreclosed on, and so that consumers can spend more money to help further stimulate the economy. Until One of the most famous phtotos of Hippies in a Peaceful Demonstration for Social Change placing flowers in the rifle muzzles of Members of the National Guard. Maybe these kind of Demonstrations need repeating for the changes we need now? Failure to do the above and more, will just cause more unemployment and a Great Depression, Anarchy, and Burning Cities! and more crime because people are not going to let themselves or their spouses or children go hungry, and homeless if possible, so they will go out and commit crimes to get the money they need. The cost of this type of crime monetarily and in human suffering or death thatjk the cost more than paying entitlements in most cases. Additionally, the Recession has made the racial wealth gap extremely worse which also causes more crime to be committed. Recession worsens racial wealth Whether we the United States falls into a Great Depression fermenting Anarchy, Riots, Looting and other Violence in America in the near future like London and other Nations are experiencing, depends upon whether Lawmakers can figure out the formula for the necessary Tax Hikes of the Rich and America’s Private Industries to create new jobs, more consumer spending, all of which create the Revenue we desperately need for our Treasury. Left-wing cynics blame the Tory cuts for orgy of violence: MPs and activists line up to make excuses for thugsLeft-wing politicians have cynically sought to make political capital out of the riots, blaming government cuts for the orgy of violence. Labour MPs and activists lined up to make excuses for the thugs, spouting claims that disadvantaged youth had no option but to smash up high streets. Chris Williamson, Labour MP for Derby North, suggested the Government’s austerity drive was to blame.
Blame: Left-wing politicians have been accused of cynically trying to make political capital out of the riots, blaming government for the riots
Labour MPs and activists have claimed that the people involved in riots have been pushed to take this violent action On Twitter, he said: ‘The Tories are back alright. Why is it the Tories never take responsibility for the consequences of their party’s disastrous policies. #tottenham’ Minutes earlier he had endorsed the comment of another Twitter user who said: ‘Riots. Protests. Cuts. Unemployment. Disaffected Youth. Strikes. Recession. Police Brutality.’ Swift to jump on the bandwagon was Lee Jasper, a former adviser on policing to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He blamed the ‘economic violence’ of the government for the riots and expressed no sympathy for businesses that were smashed up. He claimed some were attacked because they do not help create projects for under-privileged youths and was quoted as asking: ‘When did Curry’s build a school?’ In another interview, Mr Jasper appeared to blame the police for the violence, saying the authorities had failed to take account of the level of suspicion among people in Tottenham when it responded to the death of alleged drug dealer Mark Duggan.
Mr Jasper was following the example of his former boss. Mr Livingstone said that the austerity drive had created a ‘social division’ which was forcing the police into conflict with communities. He said: ‘The economic stagnation and cuts being imposed by the Tory government inevitably create social division. ‘As when Margaret Thatcher imposed such policies during her recessions this creates the threat of people losing control, acting in completely unacceptable ways that threaten everyone, and culminating in events of the type we saw in Tottenham.’
Angry: Conservative MP Mike Freer (pictured) says 'If Labour politicians want to ride on the back of the rioters in order to obtain some spurious political advantage they should be ashamed of themselves.' Mr Livingstone and his acolytes came under fire from furious Tories, who pointed out that he of all people should know that vast investment has been piled into Tottenham, Hackney and Lewisham over the last three decades. Mike Freer, Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said: ‘It’s complete nonsense. These riots are about vandalism. If Labour politicians want to ride on the back of the rioters in order to obtain some spurious political advantage they should be ashamed of themselves. To the best of my knowledge, we talked about cuts but most of them have not bitten yet. If Labour politicians really believe that, let’s have a list of cuts that they think justified people turning to violence. Even the local MP David Lammy has rejected that approach.’ Mark Field, MP for the City and Westminster, added: ‘Of all people, Ken Livingstone should know how much Hackney and Lewisham have changed beyond all recognition over the last 30 years. ‘This is opportunistic criminality. The events in Tottenham need investigating but these copycat riots in Lewisham and Brixton are nothing to do with the cuts. ‘It is reprehensible to make any such parallel.’ Black London Labour MPs including Mr Lammy, Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna distanced themselves from attempts to blame the cuts. Miss Abbott said: ‘Cuts don’t turn you into a thief. What we saw was people thieving for hours. Mr Umunna said the violence in London was ‘totally opportunistic and utterly unacceptable’. He added: ‘I think we have got to be very careful about seeking to draw general conclusions from a series of events around London to make some kind of historical judgment about what is going on. Police officers in riot gear block a road near a burning car on a street in Hackney as youths hurl missiles at officers
Looters raid the Orange phone shop in New Street Birmingham in copy-cat riots which have sprung up in the city Other areas of the capital were braced for violence this afternoon with workers barricading their shops in Stratford and Islington. Barriers were erected outside Westfield Shopping Centre and Kilburn High Street was closed off. Police were also on the streets in Harlesden. In Hackney, youths set fire to cars, rubbish bins and were spotted looting shops and setting off fireworks in the direction of police. At least 30 riot vans were spotted in the area with three helicopters. In Lewisham cars were set alight and several bins near the Town Hall, while in Peckham a bus was set alight by arsonists. Buses were re-routed away from Peckham and Lewisham whilst the violence was brought under control. Similar scenes emerged in Deptford, with one building set alight. Commenters in Hackney earlier this afternoon said the thugs had looted Ladbrokes and JD Sports shop and other eye-witnesses suggested that the police were trying to prevent rioters from trashing Hackney’s Town Hall. Meanwhile, a man was seen on a tube train dressed in black and carrying a copper rod as he headed into the riots. The roots of the burning and looting in North London at the weekend can be traced back not to Broadwater Farm 1985 but to the Great Ikea Riot of 2005. Six years ago a 7,000-strong mob went berserk at the opening of a new furniture warehouse in Edmonton. Five people were taken to hospital, including a woman who was stabbed in a fight over a cut-price sofa. Police and security guards fought running battles with bargain hunters and the North Circular Road was brought to a standstill.
Riots: But the police have questions to answer too Shoppers desperate for discount bed frames, on sale for as little as £30, tried to smash their way in to the store when the doors were barred after just half an hour. One member of staff had his jaw broken and paramedics feared for their lives. Ikea admitted that it was probably a mistake to offer such low introductory prices and to open the warehouse at midnight. But that doesn’t explain why customers ‘behaved like animals’, according to eye-witnesses. They scrapped like alley cats over soft furnishings even as the casualties were being stretchered off to ambulances. One scared shopper said: ‘It’s just furniture. It’s not worth dying over.’ Edmonton is a couple of miles north of Tottenham as the Molotov Cocktail flies, so it was no surprise when the looting spread there on Sunday. Some of the survivors of the Great Ikea Riot were almost certainly filling their boots on Tottenham High Road and at nearby Wood Green Shopping City, where thieves formed orderly queues to ‘liberate’ everything from flat-screen TVs to trainers. More from Richard Littlejohn...
One photograph showed a woman casually trying on a pair of stolen shoes in front of a smashed store front. This wasn’t a spontaneous uprising of dissent from the downtrodden masses, it was shopping with violence. Enfield isn’t a deprived inner-city ghetto, it’s a peaceful middle-class suburb. The disturbances there weren’t a protest against police brutality. A few hooligans figured the police would be so busy down the road in Tottenham that it was the perfect opportunity to rob the local Vodafone dealer. Just as some of those who took part in the Great Ikea Riot had come from as far afield as Birmingham, so agitators and opportunists from all over London and beyond flocked to Tottenham and surrounding suburbs at the weekend. Rioters were alerted to the potential for violence against the police via anti-social network messages from some of the leading lights in the Stop The Cuts mayhem in Central London earlier this year — including wheelchair warrior Jody McIntyre, who tweeted to his 9,000 followers: ‘Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham and rise up in your neighbourhood = the way we can beat the feds.’ Let’s hope the police round up these electronic ringleaders and charge them with incitement. The only real link to the Broadwater Farm riot was location, location, location. Relations between the police and the ‘community’ have improved beyond recognition since 1985. Don’t take my word for it, listen to the local MP David Lammy who has lived in Tottenham all his life. Millions of pounds have been pumped into inner city estates in the wake of the disturbances of the early to mid 1980s, not just in Tottenham, but also Brixton and other notorious concrete jungles across London. In the case of Broadwater Farm, it would probably have been better to raze the place to the ground and start over again.
Under siege: People have been burned out of their homes and small businesses The most frightening side-effect of the new ‘softly, softly’ policing approach is that the control of such estates has been surrendered to lawless gangs led by the likes of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked the peaceful demonstration which escalated into mob violence. Reliable locals attest that, despite the Guardian’s doting portrait of him as a respectable pillar of the community, Duggan was involved in drug dealing and gun crime. Impressionable ‘youths’ looked up to him as an ‘elder’. Only on our inner city estates can a 29-year-old gangster be considered an ‘elder’, a term usually associated with a wise old man. Mind you, there are probably a few 29-year-old grandfathers around these days, so anyone over 30 counts as ancient in some communities. The police have questions to answer, not just in relation to the death of Mark Duggan but also why they stood aside and allowed the wholesale looting in Wood Green and at the Tottenham retail park.
Rebel without a cause: Most of the protestors are motivated by greed It would be premature to prejudge the outcome of the official inquiry into the shooting, but it is worth pointing out that it involved officers who work out of a specialist unit at Scotland Yard, not the local nick at Tottenham. And it is also worth noting that young, predominantly black, men are shot dead in turf wars every week across London without it turning into an excuse for setting fire to Carpetright and robbing Foot Locker. The usual suspects have been bleating about police brutality and ‘racism’ being the prime causes of the unrest. But if there is racism in Tottenham, it’s not white on black. The racial tensions involve hostility between Jamaicans, Nigerians, Cypriots, Albanians, Kurds and a host of Eastern European newcomers.
Looters: This wasn't a protest - it was shopping with violence
Emptied out: Looters' thirst to take anything they could get their hands on was extraordinary There’s resentment among the ‘youths’ against those who are perceived to have got on in life. Look no further than the Tweet from one of the looters which read: ‘F*** the electronics, them Turkish jewellers needed to get robbed.’ Unemployment is a problem, largely because so many of the poor, misunderstood ‘youths’ prefer to live on benefits and the proceeds of gang crime rather than seek gainful employment. While they are posing for ‘gangsta’ photos on Facebook, most of the low-paid, but essential, jobs are filled by hard-working recent arrivals. Study the shop signs in Tottenham High Road and see how many are written in Polish. One of the convenience stores looted was advertising Bulgarian food. These are the people who have been burned out of their homes and small businesses. There were two dozen flats above the carpet warehouse which went up in flames.
Mark Duggan: Gang chiefs like him took over in estates abandoned by police The tragedy is not that the rioters have fouled their own nest, they have destroyed the hopes of so many decent people who have devoted their lives to building a real community in Tottenham. Politicians have been content to throw money at these inner city areas without ever addressing the underlying problems, while fiddling around with their own fashionable obsessions. One of the most ludicrous images from Saturday night was the photo of a double-decker bus in flames alongside a notice reading: ‘Low Emissions Zone.’ Just as prison warders turn a blind eye to prisoners smoking dope in the belief that it keeps them docile, so the police routinely ignore criminality in pursuit of a quiet life. There has been much hand-wringing and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past couple of days, most of it utter garbage. One thing is certain: this wasn’t about poverty, not in the material sense. If there’s poverty, it’s spiritual poverty, moral poverty and poverty of ambition. In countries where there’s real deprivation, they have food riots. Here we have flat-screen TV riots. The other certainty is that this has nothing to do with the riots at Broadwater Farm 26 years ago. This wasn’t a political protest, or a demonstration against oppression, it was a grotesque manifestation of our shallow, instant gratification, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now consumerist society, coupled with an extreme explosion of the kind of casual violence which scars our town and city centres across Britain every weekend. There was more trouble in Brixton and last night the madness kicked off in Hackney and Peckham, as large areas of London went into lockdown. At the time of the Broadwater Farm riots, there were copycat incidents, too. I remember driving past a skirmish outside Huckleberry’s hamburger bar opposite Turnpike Lane Tube station, which was later labelled the ‘Wood Green riot’. But it had nothing on this latest burning and looting. We used to joke: Red sky at night, Tottenham’s alight. Now it’s not so funny. The titans of Broadwater Farm — Barmy Bernie Grant, Dolly Kiffin et al — have either died or are but a distant memory. All bar one, that is. Right on cue Red Ken popped up to blame the weekend’s riots on Tory spending ‘cuts’. There speaks the true voice of a man forever stuck in 1985. Looters raid two shops in Hackney, east London tonight. They are seen forcing their way into buildings making off with goods with smashed glass all over the pavement
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London burns at hands of the mob as the PM finally flies home: Gangs armed with petrol bombs and poles on THIRD night of riots and cynical looting
- Serious violence in Hackney, Croydon, Peckham and Birmingham tonight
- Unrest also reported in Deptford, Camden, Kensington, Ealing, Lewisham, Bethnal Green and Woolwich
- Some residents ordered to evacuate their homes in Clapham Junction
- Police urge football clubs to cancel London fixtures
- Prime Minister David Cameron is returning home from his holiday tonight for an emergency meeting
- Met's Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin urged parents to get their children off the streets
- 300 officers drafted in from 12 other forces to bring unrest under control
- 225 people arrested since Saturday night - including one aged 11 - and 36 charged
By Emily Allen
Last updated at 12:42 AM on 9th August 2011
Police and firefighters are struggling to control a series of riots across London tonight in which officers have been attacked, shops looted and dozens of buildings set on fire.
The violence began in Hackney shortly after 4pm when a mob of hooded youths began hurling missiles at officers and setting fire to bins and cars. Minutes later similar scenes erupted in Lewisham, spreading to Peckham, Deptford and Croydon in south east London.
Reeves furniture store was burned to the ground Croydon - a family business for more than 100 years - and one woman was seen leaping from a burning building on Surrey Street as flames threatened to engulf her. Police have also announced a man has been shot in the suburb, but not fatally injured.
A woman leaps from a burning building in Surrey Street, Croydon after flames threaten to engulf her. People stand to catch her as she jumps to safety
Devastation: Flames more than 100 feet high in Croydon after rioters set fire to a building. The suburb has suffered some of the most serious violence in the capital
Disturbances have also been reported in Harrow, in the north west of the city and Clapham, in south London, where shops have been looted, including the Debenhams store and a row of shops in Lavender Hill.
Unrest has also been reported in Fulham, at Wandsworth Bridge Road, Woolwich in south east London and Ealing in west London this evening where the windows at a Tesco supermarket were smashed and rubbish strewn across the street.
A bus at High Street Kensington has also been attacked and unrest has been reported in Camden and Chalk Farm.
Some reports suggest people in Hackney and Clapham Junction have been forced to flee their homes following the violence. Police have also urged football clubs to cancel any up-coming London fixtures until the violence has been brought under control.
Gangs of looters - who appear to be teenagers and young adults from a range of different backgrounds - have raided hundreds of shops and businesses across the city, making off with TVs and other electrical goods, cigarettes, clothes and alcohol.
This evening Downing Street announced Prime Minister David Cameron is returning home from his holiday in Italy tonight to chair a government emergency Cobra meeting tomorrow morning. Labour leader Ed Miliband is also said to be returning early from his holiday in Devon.
Croydon: Arsonists started a blaze at Reeves furniture store - the latest borough to come under attack from rioters. The family business is more than 100 years old
Camden: The violence has now spread to Camden and Chalk Farm in north London. Police are seen walking the streets near Camden Lock
Hackney: Police officers in riot gear block a road near a burning car on a street in Hackney as youths hurl missiles at officers
Hackney: Dozens of riot police in helmets and shields surround a rioter in London in Hackney this afternoon as he admits defeat
Birmingham: Looters raid the Orange Store in New Street this evening in copy-cat riots which have erupted in the city
Hackney: Looters rampage through a convenience store making off with cigarettes and alcohol. Hundreds of shops across the city have been ransacked
Violence: A masked man walks past a burning car outside a Carhartt store in Hackney this afternoon. Violence is also taking place in Peckham and Lewisham
A burning car in Hackney this afternoon. Violence has also begun in Peckham, south London with shops being attacked and a bus has also been set on fire
The violence began on Saturday night after the shooting of suspected gangster Mark Duggan in Tottenham.
London's Mayor Boris Johnson announced he was cutting short his holiday to return to the city while Home Secretary Theresa May also returned early from her holiday to meet police officers and insisted rioters 'would be brought to justice'.
She condemned the riots as 'sheer criminality and said those responsible would 'face the consequences of their actions'.
Mrs May said: 'The riots in Tottenham on Saturday night and the subsequent disturbances in other parts of London are totally unacceptable.'
Haringey Council said the damage to roads and pavements in Tottenham on Saturday night was in the region of £227,000.
Across the capital people took to Twitter to report the unrest as it unfolded.
Hooded youths loot a Carhartt store in Hackney by ripping out a roller-shutter door before making off with clothes
People flee in Hackney as rioting began in the east London suburb this afternoon where cars and bins were set alight and missiles thrown at police
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Tottenham MP David Lammy (left) meet local residents and business people including jeweller Steve Moore (far right) who lost his shop after rioting broke out in Tottenham on Saturday In Hackney, commentators said thugs had looted Ladbrokes and JD Sports shop and other eye-witnesses suggested that the police were trying to prevent rioters from trashing Hackney’s Town Hall. The violence was centred on Mare Street, a main road that runs near London Fields. Meanwhile, a man was seen on a Tube train dressed in black and carrying a copper rod as he headed into the riots. An eyewitness said: ‘One man on the Tube was dressed all in black – he even had gloves on – and he had a big copper rod tucked inside his jumper. At Bethnal Green it dropped on to the floor and lots of people looked quite alarmed and got off at the stop.’ Josefinehedlund tweeted: ‘Kids smashing up police cars outside Tesco in Hackney Central Getting closer to my neighbour, scary.’ Another user, Matthew Paul Balman tweeted: 'Just seen some live pics of London and the riots, wtf is going on. Thugs throwing chairs and facing off with the police.' Twitter user antoinette213 wrote: 'This is a madness. I'm seeing these youths live just opening up some truck and emptying it.' Many warned their friends and family to stay inside and pleaded with people not to incite violence on the website. User Vicky Simister described how youths were arming themselves: 'big truck being unloaded by hoodies on Mare St - taking wood sticks out and throwing at police.' Stratford Shopping Centre in east London was closed after police warned managers that the area could turn into a potential flashpoint. Centre manager Andrew Norton said: 'People's safety is absolutely paramount, which is why we've closed early. The whole situation's really quite bizarre.' Nearby, the Stratford Picturehouse cinema told audiences to go home and closed its doors hours early. On Sunday, In Enfield, North London, a mob of 200 anarchists smashed their way into shops and lobbed concrete slabs at police cars following Saturday’s riot in nearby Tottenham. A jewellery store, a McDonald's and a Tesco were set upon, while in Brixton, South London, hundreds of teenagers looted a Foot Locker store before setting it on fire, requiring six engines to battle the blaze at 1.30am. Police reported that more than 100 arrests took place across the capital on Sunday night. | The violence has spread to Deptford this evening - including this building which has been set on fire. It follows violence in Hackney, Lewisham and Peckham today
Police in riot gear drag a man along a street in Hackney whilst looters in hooded tops and scarves raid the Carhartt store with one man making off with a pair of jeans
Chaos: Twitter users describe seeing youths loot a lorry and the sports shop JD sports, while another woman tells how rioters are attacking police cars Earlier this afternoon Chief Superintendent Nick Ephgrave, Lambeth Police borough commander, confirmed that three non-fatal stabbings took place in the borough during yesterday's riots. He said he had visited an injured police office in hospital and added that 'his face was covered in stitches'. A Scotland Yard homicide team has been brought in to investigate the riots, according to Mr Ephgrave, speaking at a meeting with Lambeth Council and community leaders at Lambeth Town Hall. |
A car burns outside a Carhartt store in Hackney where youths also looted the store
He said the extra resources and the 'full use of all their technology' would allow police to catch those responsible for the violence and looting last night.
He said the police have 'more than 30 prisoners' following the disturbances.
A Section 60 order is in place in the area today, allowing police to stop anyone they suspect may commit violent acts.
Mr Ephgrave said much of the violence was 'pre-planned' using 'PIN-protected messaging serviced' such as Blackberry messenger that are 'difficult to access' by police.
He said police are also looking at Facebook and Twitter for evidence of any criminal planning.
Council leader Steve Reed and many community leaders present at the meeting expressed concerns over police resources.
Lee Jasper, chair of Brixton Splash, a community event which took place yesterday, said he knew police had extra resources in the area and that either 'they weren't enough or they weren't deployed properly'.
He said he was at the Currys store where looting took place for an hour from 10.45pm last night before police arrived.
Mr Ephgrave said the outbreaks of rioting across London meant a lot of the reserves at his disposal were deployed to other areas at the time.
The alert came as plans for the Notting Hill Carnival were thrown into jeopardy amid fears that the festival could be a focal point to violence,
There are concerns that the West Indian event over the August bank holiday could even be cancelled in an attempt to prevent more riots.
Three London fire engines also came under attack during the second night of rioting in London. One engine from Brixton station being targeted while actually fighting a blaze started by looters raiding the Foot Locker store.
Two others from West Norwood and Edmonton were on their way to blazes when they were set upon. Windows were smashed as mobs of looters hurled bricks and other missiles at the engines.
Surrender! Powerless police let the mob seize the streets, looting shops and starting fires in their wake
Violence and mayhem were spreading like wildfire through the capital last night with police apparently powerless to act.
Scenes of mob rule became more terrifying by the minute as widespread arson and anarchy was added to the orgy of looting.
By midnight flashpoints had multiplied around London, with Clapham, Hackney, Dalston, Peckham, Woolwich and Lewisham added to the list which already included Enfield, Walthamstow and Tottenham.
Taking over the streets: A large crowd gathered in this street in Hackney, east London, before clashing with he police
Late night looters: A group of youths run through the streets in Dalston, east London, after breaking into the area's Kingsland shopping centre
Stealing: A group of looters flee from clothes store Blue Inc in Peckham after stealing clothes
And there were fears that the chaos could spread nationwide, with Croydon to the south of the capital ablaze, and even Birmingham joining in the destruction as hundreds of youths smashed shop windows and looted the contents.
With cars, shops and homes burning, police tactics were coming under ever-increasing attack.
Riot officers were unable to deal with the sheer scale of the violence and there were questions about the Metropolitan force’s lack of leadership following the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson.
The police lack of control allowed mobs of children aged as young as seven to rampage through the streets at will. Mobs of masked youngsters, some on BMXs, roamed the streets ransacking stores in daylight and hurling petrol bombs at police. At least 35 officers were hurt and tens of millions of pounds of damage was caused to homes and businesses in ‘copycat criminal activity’ across London.
Youths in Peckham were videoed throwing fireworks down one street yesterday evening
Smashed: This Maplin shop in Birmingham and a bookmakers in Peckham were vandalised by the rioters
Raid: This group targeted a jewellery store at the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham
Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Tim Godwin took the extraordinary step of appealing to parents whose children were running wild, telling them: ‘I do urge that parents start asking where they are.’
David Cameron was forced to quit his holiday and fly back to chair an emergency summit this morning.
The orgy of violence has its roots in the police shooting of suspected gangster Mark Duggan last Thursday.
But by last night it had descended into ‘pure criminality’ and ‘thieving on a mass scale’.
On another calamitous day for the capital, it emerged that:
- Some 215 arrests had been made, the youngest being a boy of 11;
- Police promised to track down the internet provocateurs who called on others to join the looting;
- Pamphlets were handed out advising thugs to burn clothes if caught on CCTV to evade capture.
- There were reports that Mark Duggan did not fire on police, but an officer shot him dead because he feared he was in danger from the gunman;
- It emerged that Duggan was armed with a blank-firing gun which had been converted to hold live ammunition;
Rampage: A group of looters raid a local shop in Hackney, stripping the shelves bare of drink and cigarettes, while a cash machine is also ripped apart
Stripped bare: The looters jumped over counters and threw food such as crisps and sweets to the floor in order to get to the things they wanted
Milling about: Hundreds of people gather outside a parade of shops in Hackney before things turned violent in Hackney
Last night London was in lockdown as police lined the streets braced for violence led by ‘burglars, thugs and bullies’.
Scotland Yard invoked special powers in four trouble hotspots – Lambeth, Haringey, Enfield and Waltham Forest – allowing officers to stop and search suspects without reasonable suspicion.
But the move backfired when violence erupted in Hackney, East London in retaliation to the search operation.
There, armed gangs on BMX bicycles attacked a crowded bus during the evening rush-hour and then chased the screaming commuters as they tried to escape.
Riot police were forced to evacuate homes in the area. Screaming children were led to safety as cars and buildings continued to burn.
London's burning: A riot officer watches as a shop burns in Croydon as riots spread out of London yesterday evening
Police were unable to prevent the attacks because all the riot officers on the streets were caught up in running battles with gangs who pelted them with lumps of wood, chairs and bottles.
The mob set fire to several buildings and three police cars. Witnesses reported seeing children aged as young as seven involved. They smashed the windows of stores, grabbing what they could before riot police arrived.
Other thugs fought each other over a bag of diamonds which had fallen on to the street after it had been looted from a jewellers.
A police officer could be seen lying on the ground after being struck on his shield by a missile.
Other officers created a cordon around him while he was treated by colleagues.
At one point child rioters tried to hijack a bus so they could drive it at police. As shop protective grilles were ripped up and a security camera smashed, two teenage girls giggled to each other, saying: ‘We’re gonna get gold!’
There were also reports that white people were being targeted for robbery by gangs roaming the streets.
Smash and grab: A group of youths kick the door in of the JD Sports store in Hackney, while another group escapes from a store, one carrying a television he has taken
Mindless: A group of youths attacks a helpless photographer in Brimingham as the violence spread north last night
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