Fears of more violence after worst London riots for years

Fears of more violence after worst London riots for years

Reuters By Michael Holden and Adrian Croft | Reuters – 2 hrs 10 mins ago


(AP Photo / Lewis Whyld, PA)

LONDON (Reuters) - London braced on Sunday for more violence after some of the worst riots in the British capital for years which politicians and police blamed on criminal thugs but residents attributed to local tensions and anger over hardship.

Rioters throwing petrol bombs rampaged overnight through the deprived district of Tottenham in north London, setting police patrol cars, buildings and a double-decker bus on fire.

"There is Twitter conversations that people are being asked to meet again down in Tottenham, so we are all concerned but clearly we will be much better prepared this evening," Richard Barnes, London's Deputy Mayor, told BBC TV.

Police Commander Adrian Hanstock told Reuters there was "a lot of ill-informed and inaccurate speculation on social media sites" that could inflame the situation.

"Should we receive any indication that there will be any further violence or offending, there is a robust policing plan in place and we will respond appropriately with the resources available to us," he said.

Police later said they were called to Enfield, a few miles north of Tottenham, where youths had smashed two shop windows and damaged a police car. "Not a riot, but serious disturbance," the local member of parliament (MP) Nick de Bois wrote on his Twitter site.

BOMBARDED WITH MISSILES, BOTTLES

Police said 26 officers were injured as rioters bombarded them overnight with missiles and bottles, looted buildings including banks, shops and council offices, and torched three patrol cars near Tottenham police station.

The riots erupted after a street protest over the fatal shooting of a man by armed police this week. Residents said they had to flee their homes as mounted police and riot officers on foot charged the crowd to push rioters back.

As day broke, the Metropolitan Police, which will handle next year's London Olympic Games in what is expected to be Britain's biggest peacetime police operation, faced questions about how the trouble had been allowed to escalate.

The disturbance was finally brought under control on Sunday after hours of sporadic clashes. Buildings were still shouldering, bricks littered the roads and burglar alarms continued to ring out.

At a nearby retail park, electrical stores and mobile phone shops had been ransacked, with boxes for large plasma TVs discarded outside, along with CDs and glass from smashed windows. "They have taken almost everything," said Saad Kamal, 27, branch manager of retailer JD Sports. "Whatever is left is damaged."

APPEAL FOR CALM

Local MP David Lammy said it was not known if everyone had escaped flats above shops that were gutted by fire. "A community that was already hurting has now had the heart ripped out of it," he told reporters.

Police and community leaders said local people had been horrified by what happened and appealed for calm.

The trouble broke out on Saturday night following the peaceful demonstration over the shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, who was killed after an exchange of gunfire with police on Thursday. Duggan's death is now being investigated by the independent police watchdog.

The riots come amid deepening gloom in Britain, with the economy struggling to grow while the government is imposing deep public spending cuts and tax rises brought into help eliminate a budget deficit which peaked at more than 10 percent of GDP.

"Tottenham is a deprived area. Unemployment is very, very high ... they are frustrated," said Uzodinma Wigwe, 49, who was made redundant from his job as a cleaner recently.

"We know we have been victimised by this government, we know we are being neglected by the government," said another middle-aged man who declined to give his name. "How can you make one million youths unemployed and expect us to sit down?"

Tottenham has a large number of ethnic minorities and includes areas with the highest unemployment rates in London. It also has a history of racial tension with local young people, especially blacks, resenting police behavior including the use of stop and search powers.

NOTORIOUS RACE RIOT IN 1985

The disorder was close to where one of Britain's most notorious race riots occurred in 1985, when police officer Keith Blakelock was hacked to death on the deprived Broadwater Farm housing estate during widespread disturbances.

Locals said there had been growing anger recently about police behavior. "I've lived in Broadwater Farm for 20 odd years and from day one, police always pre-judge Turks and black people," said a 23-year-old community worker of Turkish origin who would not give his name.

Fingers were also pointed at the police for failing to anticipate the trouble, although Commander Hanstock said there had been no hint of what was coming. He said they expected to add to the 55 people already arrested.

The London force has been heavily criticised for its handling of recent large protests against austerity measures, while its chief and the top counter-terrorism officer have quit over the handling of the News Corp phone-hacking scandal.

"I'm concerned that what was peaceful protest ... turned into this and it seemed to go on for many hours before we saw the kind of policing that I think is appropriate," Lammy said.

Politicians said criminals and thugs, rather than those with genuine grievances, had taken advantage of the situation.

"The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable," a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said. "There is no justification for the aggression the police and the public faced, or for the damage to property."

The capital also saw riots at the end of last year when protests against government plans to raise tuition fees for university students in the center of London turned violent.

During the most serious disturbances last December, rioters targeted the limousine belonging to heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and his wife Camilla.

(Editing by David Stamp)

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London braced for further rioting

AFPBy James Pheby | AFP – 42 mins ago

London police on Sunday maintained an uneasy calm as night fell on the area the day after some of the capital's worst rioting in years, sparked by the fatal shooting of a local man.

As the sun set Sunday, Scotland Yard reported that youths had vandalised a police car and smashed two windows in Enfield, a suburb three miles north of Tottenham, the area at the centre of the previous night's disorder.

Additional police resources were deployed in the volatile neighbourhoods on Sunday as the Metropolitan force vowed to avoid a repeat of the earlier scenes of mayhem.

Homes were torched and shops looted late Saturday, conjuring up memories of 1985 riots in the same area and dampening the mood in a city hosting the Olympic Games in a year.

Police said 26 of its officers were hurt, while three members of the public also needed treatment following the surprise violence. By Sunday, all the injured police officers had been discharged from hospital.

A total 55 arrests were made, while Prime Minister David Cameron's office described the rioting as "utterly unacceptable."

A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said all the fires were under control.

"We are still at the scene of some of them to damp them down and make sure everything is out," he added, as burnt-out cars and buildings in sealed-off roads bore witness to the night before.

The mayhem, which broke out in Tottenham just before sunset on Saturday, followed a protest over the death of a 29-year-old man last Thursday during an apparent exchange of gunfire with police.

Thursday's killing of Mark Duggan, a father-of-four, was "absolutely regrettable," police commander Adrian Hanstock said in a statement, adding that an investigation into the shooting was underway.

According to the Guardian newspaper, initial ballistics tests on a bullet which was found lodged in a police officer's radio when Duggan was shot revealed it was a police issue bullet, raising doubts over the early explanation of events.

Duggan's brother Shaun Hall called for peace.

"We're not condoning any kind of actions like that at all," he told Sky News.

"I know people are frustrated, they're angry out there at the moment, but I would say please try and hold it down. Please don't make this about my brother's life, he was a good man."

Saturday's demonstration had begun as a peaceful rally outside the police station on Tottenham High Road before two police cars were attacked with petrol bombs and set ablaze.

A double-decker bus was then torched as the violence rapidly spread, with gangs of hooded youths descending on the area.

There was concern that the unrest was fuelled by rapid posts on social media sites inciting others to join in.

London has seen student and trade union protests turn ugly in the last 12 months but this outbreak of rioting was the worst seen for years away from the capital's centre.

"The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable," a Downing Street spokesman said in a statement.

One witness said Saturday's scene resembled the Blitz, or when parts of London burned following German bombing in the Second World War.

"So many people have lost everything. It's just crazy. It looks like it's the Second World War. It looks like the Blitz where we were living," Tottenham resident Stuart Radose told Sky News television.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said Sunday he had no plans to cut short his holiday to return to the capital, adding he had "full confidence" in the police.

The area is an ethnically-diverse urban area best known for its football club Tottenham Hotspur.

"This is an attack on Tottenham, on people, on ordinary people," local member of parliament David Lamy told reporters.

"Women who are now standing on the streets homeless. These are ordinary shop keepers who live above their shops."

Duggan was killed when specialist firearms officers stopped a minicab in which he was travelling to carry out a pre-planned arrest.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigates all police shootings, said they were accompanied by officers from Trident, the unit focused on tackling gun crime in the black community.

The march against Duggan's death began at Broadwater Farm, a 1960s public housing estate in Tottenham that is notorious across Britain.

In 1985, police constable Keith Blakelock was hacked to death on the estate in some of the worst urban rioting in Britain during the past 30 years.


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