Panic On The Streets Of London

The London riots have been getting progressively worse over the last 3 nights, with the worst of the trouble resulting in over 1,700 reported fires around the city. One of the most reported last night was Reeve’s furniture store in Croydon, which is a local family business that has been open for over 100 years. It seems as though Croydon fell victim to arsonists more than looters, as Reeve’s was full of 3 piece suites and other furniture that no looter would be carrying home!

The motive behind these ‘riots’ is now becoming a distant memory as they are no longer fighting for a cause, but simply carrying out acts of thuggery and arson. Many of the offenders are youths from deprived backgrounds simply gaining material goods, with no apparent awareness of the controversy around the death of Mark Duggan, which of course, is what sparked the riots in Tottenham 3 days ago.

As well as Croydon; Hackney, Clapham Junction, Ealing, Camden, and Enfield were all targeted with criminal reports echoing one another. All crimes committed are similar, with the most popular shops to be looted being electronic stores, shoe shops and off licenses, reflecting the shallow, materialistic intent of the looters. The biggest damage to come from last night is sure to be the Sony electronics warehouse in Enfield, which was looted by around 20 youths on bikes. It is reported that on their way out they decided to set it on fire, seeing as it was of no further use to them. The blaze is still being fought this morning as the extent of this fire is revealed. Fire fighters have been working over night to control and put out this fire and has certainly been proven to be the largest over the night.

The damage to small businesses and big chains, which have been targeted over the last 3 nights is unimaginable. Some shops are able to get away with only the need for a replacement of glass to their shop fronts, while others such as many branches of Curry’s, have been completely emptied with large numbers of stock being taken

To add to the injury, the uproar has spread to other places around the UK with reports in Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. This must be sounding rather familiar to those who remember the riots in 1981, which started with the Brixton Riots dubbed ‘bloody Saturday’ which was fuelled by a similar incident. It was believed that amongst controversy in Brixton, a young teen, Michael Bailey had a stab wound and was left to die by police officers who were surrounding the area. This was later proved not to be the case but this apparent neglect from the police sparked the riots that followed. These resulted in over 100 vehicles being burnt (56 being police vehicles) and almost 150 damaged buildings (30 of which being burnt). It was suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved with 82 arrests that night. Following this came the Toxteth riots (in Liverpool), which again caused damage with looting and cars being set on fire. As well as this were the Handsworth Riots (Birmingham) which were again as a result of the Brixton riots and linked all three. This was not as severe as the other two but all three had repercussions in 1985 and 1991, which were more severe and consisted of looting, arson and unlawfulness.

These riots led to the Government drawing attention to the young people and The Youth Training Schemes were brought in. With regards to the police policy in England, their Public Order Manual was produced as a response and was subsequently used in training for police forces.

However, this sheds no light on what will happen in the current riots as no one is coming forward with plans of action. David Cameron has come out today saying that there will be 16,000 police officers on the streets tonight but nothing has been discussed, or at least mentioned to the public, about how they will approach the rioters. It seems safe to say that the tactics used up until now with lines of riot police being formed did not prove much help as the rioters were still left to cause as much damage as they wanted.