London Calling

[Hauldren Collider]

No, not really. When was the last time a riot actually made people feel sorry for the rioters?

[C0ckney]

A lot of the "experts" seem to suggest that if the police were to deploy water cannon, baton rounds or tear gas it would seem like they lost control. I think it is getting beyond that point now. It won't be long before residents in affected areas will set up vigilante groups, which would lead to a serious escalation.

this is something i wondered about. it might be a good idea for resident to get themselves organised to defend their streets and communities. although this would involve people acknowleding the existence of their neighbours and talking to them, which might be a bit hard in london.

[rah]

Faced by what initially started as a peaceful demonstration, the police responded with their usual "culturally sensitive," "softly softly" approach of showing sympathy, maintaining a low police presence, avoiding assertive gestures, allowing the mob to vent its emotions, and retreating behind barriers, effectively giving a green light to the rioters and anyone else who was interested to run amok.

ah the changes time and experience brings.
Not like the old day. During the Watts riots

LAPD Police Chief William Parker also fueled the radicalized tension that already threatened to combust, by publicly labeling the people he saw involved in the riots as "monkeys in the zoo"

Interesting enough, the end results for both approaches seem similar.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14460554

The Met said Monday's was "the worst" disorder in "current memory" after incidents across the capital.

Several fires broke out in Croydon, including one at a sofa factory which spread to neighbouring buildings and tram lines
Hackney MP Diane Abbott said a London-wide curfew should be considered after 200 riot officers with dogs and mounted police were needed to deal with violence there
Looters raided shops in Stratford High Street and Clapham Junction, where police used armoured vehicles to push back more than 150 people
A Sony warehouse in Enfield, a shopping centre in Woolwich New Road and a timber yard in East Ham were all on fire
Police said two officers were injured when more than 100 people looted a Tesco store in Bethnal Green, while vehicles were set alight in Lewisham and Peckham
There were reports of looting of phone shops in Woolwich High Street, in south-east London, and set a police car on fire
Shops and restaurants were damaged in Ealing, west London
Tuesday's Carling Cup matches at Charlton, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Bristol City have been postponed at the police's request
England and Holland's friendly at Wembley on Wednesday has also been called off

16k police going in tonight... let's see if it calms down...

a lot of young people with no perspective... wander if they will still be up for reducing the police force numbers after this...

[lightblue]

It usually works in America dosen't it?


Colin Liddel writes on altright about this situation

In no way is it just Afro-Caribbean youths. The original flashpoint in Tottenham might have been, but the rioters are pretty multi ethnic. Their communality is their upbringing in sink estates, broken down families and gang culture (which might have been originally Jamaican in origin, but isn't anymore).

[Solomwi]

...A lot of the "experts" seem to suggest that if the police were to deploy water cannon, baton rounds or tear gas it would seem like they lost control...

That just seems like bizarre reasoning to me. They have lost control, and pretending it's not so won't change that fact. Better to deploy measures that could help them regain at least some measure of that control than to try to keep up the illusion that it was never lost.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

except the first flare up, this has nothing to do with race... and everything to do with the pent up no-perspective in life, which self-organized seeing that the police are not able to cope... it just escalated from there

to me this is the result of years, and if not decades old issue of the rot at the bottom of British society, no way out for those kids, and this is the result. It is sort of fair that this happened under Tories watch as the seed of what we see has been sowed by them in the 80's.

[lightblue]

That just seems like bizarre reasoning to me. They have lost control, and pretending it's not so won't change that fact. Better to deploy measures that could help them regain at least some measure of that control than to try to keep up the illusion that it was never lost.

I agree, but read the extracts from the BBC article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14459127

Water cannon which shoot a high-pressure stream of water against rioters are used in Northern Ireland as well as France, Germany and other European countries.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former army officer, called for the police to be allowed to use water cannon, saying he had used such technology and found it "extremely effective".

Dr Peter Shirlow, a human geographer and public order expert at Queen's University Belfast, agrees that such kit can be a very useful way of containing rioters who are scattered across wide open spaces by directing them into a specific area.

But he warns that, because it has never been used in Great Britain before, the authorities would risk "sending out a message that we have lost control" and inflaming tensions "in a country that has never been comfortable with the idea of militarisation".

Additionally, Peter Waddington, professor of social policy at University of Wolverhampton, who has studied policing and public order for 30 years, says getting hold of them at such short notice could be problematic.

"You don't magic water cannon out of nowhere," he adds. "There are six in Northern Ireland, but this is the marching season. I'm not sure the police there would be too keen to send them across."

Weapons such as baton rounds - colloquially known as plastic or rubber bullets - have been deployed in Northern Ireland to disperse crowds and are intended as a non-lethal alternative, although they have been the cause of a number of deaths.

Such rounds can be fired from a standard firearms or special riot guns and are typically made from plastic to minimise trauma on impact.

"Baton rounds are one of the least lethal weapons available anywhere and the rest of the world uses them freely," says Prof Waddington.

"But, symbolically, to have water cannons on the streets and baton rounds looks like the end of the world."

Dr Shirlow says they can be a useful mechanism for getting rioters to scatter, at least temporarily, which gives authorities time to regroup.

But he warns that their potentially lethal character means the police would "risk losing the moral high ground" by deploying them.

When a police officer arrests someone they then have a process to follow - under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act - that includes taking the individual to a police station, where among other things, the custody sergeant must be convinced that the arrest is justified.

Prof Waddington suggests that one option for the government would be to suspend elements of the act in order to free up officers and get them back on the streets.

"They deter officers [from making arrests] as you have to leave your colleagues fighting the battle when you know that the offences that they're likely to be charged with are relatively minor. You'll spend hours out of operation."

But Prof Waddington concedes that the government would be reluctant to make such a move as it would indicate "a serious state of emergency".

[Heraclitus]

except the first flare up, this has nothing to do with race... and everything to do with the pent up no-perspective in life, which self-organized seeing that the police are not able to cope... it just escalated from there

to me this is the result of years, and if not decades old issue of the rot at the bottom of British society, no way out for those kids, and this is the result. It is sort of fair that this happened under Tories watch as the seed of what we see has been sowed by them in the 80's.

Its dishonest to pretend the underclass isn't largely imported, not saying natives British youth isn't decadent and dangerous, but these kinds of incidents and problems would be much smaller and rarer had Labour not adopted a policy of importing new citizens with the express purpose of changing voting demographics and giving a big **** you to Tories and the right.

[lightblue]

Its dishonest to pretend the underclass isn't largely imported, not saying natives British youth isn't decadent and dangerous, but these kinds of incidents and problems would be much smaller and rarer had Labour not adopted a policy of importing new citizens with the express purpose of changing voting demographics and giving a big **** you to Tories and the right.

Bollocks. I think you'll find that most rioters are either white-British, or 3rd/4th generation Afro-Caribbean/Pakistani/Bangladeshi. Few of the recent immigrants (Eastern Europeans, East Africans and West Africans) will be involved on the whole. Recent immigration is not at fault, the collapse of traditional family structure in these societies is far more likely to be at fault.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I can let other Brits talk, but living there for 15 years, there is a whole class at the bottom and it is (by far) majority British white, while there are others in there, and a number of recent immigrants, UK is not US.

From what I can see, this is not a "race" thing, but a "lack of perspective" one, mostly young people, seeing the weakness in the system (police), going out releasing the frustration via breaking and looting.

[MikeH]

Oh, sorry, you mean fire engines. Water cannons means this over here:



I never heard of fire engines / trucks being used for riot control. Surely they need to be armoured.

There is discussion about it though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/au...r-cannon-riots

Our Fire Services categorically refuse to be used for riot control.

They want to be seen as a force that protects civilians, and never have anyone think twice about calling a fire engine because of any association with the police.

Which is good.

[Solomwi]

I agree, but read the extracts from the BBC article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14459127

Thanks for the excerpts. Don't get me wrong, I'm only questioning the rationale. There may well be very legitimate reasons for not deploying those measures, but "it will look bad" isn't one of them. I especially like Prof. Waddington's excuse that suspending parts of the PCEA would indicate "a serious state of emergency". Is that not exactly the situation?

[MikeH]

That's the point. What is the Prime Minister going to do? Everyone was *****ing and moaning that he wasn't around, as if he was going to personally quell the riots and everyone else was sitting on their hands waiting for him to swoop in and tell them to do. Now that he's back, surprise, surprise, all he is going to do is make useless speeches and pose for photo ops to pretend he is helping. He'd be better off playing tennis.

Y'all should quit trying to score political points here and just let the police do their jobs.

What he needs to do is make it appear like he gives a ****.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

or even better single handedly increase Police remit to get things under control... but no can do.