London Calling

[OneFootInTheGrave]

as we do not seem to have a thread yet... so here it is.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8690199/London-riots-violence-escalates-across-London.html

Roy Ramm, a former Scotland Yard commander, said the Met could lose control of London’s streets. “That has to be a possibility and the Home Secretary and [Met] commissioner are going to have to make some difficult decisions.” He said that by using mobile phones and social networks “these people can mass and change direction very quickly and the police tactics are being subverted”.

Last night more than 200 people had been arrested, the majority of them teenagers. The youngest was an 11 year-old, who was charged with burglary. Twenty seven people had been charged with a variety of offences.

Scotland Yard has been stung by accusations of a power vacuum at senior level. It is without a commissioner following the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson last month.

Tim Godwin, the acting commissioner, made a brief statement to reporters yesterday but it was not until last night, following a meeting with the Home Secretary, that he appeared on television to condemn the worst riots in more than a quarter of a century.

He urged parents to contact their children to get them indoors.

Mr Godwin said that while the violence on Saturday was rooted in frustration over the death of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four shot dead during a police operation, later disorder on Sunday was “pure criminality”.

[Barnabas]

What is going on exactly, here news channels just show an image of something that looks like some houses burning with the title incidents in London, but don't explain anything, and I am too lazy to read the Guardian

[Cort Haus]

It's a nightmare.

It all started on Saturday night at a demonstration in Tottenham about a man shot by police on Thursday. The details of the shooting are not yet know (which is what they were protesting about). Things got ugly, and a riot broke out, two police cars and a bus were burned, plus some buildings including a large carpet store with flats above. Many people were made homeless.

On Sunday night rioters gathered in nearby Enfield to trash shops and loot. Once it became clear that the police were stretched, copycat gangs all over London started looting, and the police have been unable to cope. It's snowballing, and people are even getting attacked in their homes, with shops and businesses burned and looted. The prime minister originally announced he was staying on holiday, but has finally agreed to come back and make some decisions. Meanwhile, people are living in fear and the mayhem has now kicked off in Birmingham, Liverpool and possibly Bristol.

It's all going off in Camden just over a mile away, but as the police secure an area the rioters just zoom somewhere else and attack that. They are using blackberry private messaging apparently to organise themselves. I'm worried they might end up here, if not tonight then any time soon. It's scary, and the police are struggling to keep control. In fact they've lost control in many ways, and the thugs know this, and more and more are being encouraged to join in. Only a small proportion of the police are trained in riot control, and these officers are insufficient to cope. Regulars officers are apparently 'not allowed' to engage in large scale public disturbance situations. However, the regulars are getting involved now, a bit, although they are not equipped, in various ways. In many cases they just watch the looters emptying shops and somehow hope to catch them later. The copycat stuff has nothing to do with the original incident, but all the opportunists are cashing in on it.

I never thought I'd say this but it's probably gonna take take the sodding army to help restore order.

It's scary here.

[Hauldren Collider]

In the US, the National Guard would have been called in by now. Do you have an equivalent?

[Hauldren Collider]

Also, I would kind of expect the queen to make a speech about this. Would that be too political for the monarch?

[Cort Haus]

The queen?

I think we need the government to do something first, to try and restore order. We don't have an equiv of the national guard. Would be a nice thing to have, tbh.

[Guynemer]

The ****ing QUEEN?!

[Hauldren Collider]

I dunno, I think if you have a figurehead who represents the unity of the british people, making a speech about rioting being stupid seems appropriate.

[Guynemer]

[Darius871]

[Hauldren Collider]

:shrug: I didn't say I expected it to do any good.

[Felch]

Well surely innocent homeowners are armed with something more than a telephone in your country. Right?

[Kitschum]

No "Anarchy in the UK"? I'm slightly disappointed.

[Kitschum]

Well surely innocent homeowners are armed with something more than a telephone in your country. Right?

Kebab knives if what I hear is correct.

[SlowwHand]

What happened is that they've had peaceful protest and nothing happened. They rioted once and improvements were made. They had more peaceful protests and were ignored again, so they rioted. Now reporters are all over the place wanting interviews. Purpose validated and served. The part of London where this is occurring is very poor.