London Burning

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Police shot a father of three who may or not may be an arms dealer with ties to organized crime and may or may not have opened fire upon the arresting officers. Nothing of that is sure right now.

What is sure is that after that, there was peaceful prostest in front of the precinct, the police did not handle the situation too well, a riot broke out and then it spread.

Ah ok, thanks, so it's basically another replay of the Rodney King police beatings and subsequent Los Angeles riots of 1992. That's pretty bad. I pray for the safety of the sane people in the UK.
 
While I'm close to Croydon I'm hoping that I'm far enough away, and also not in a built up area so there's nowhere to riot if you see what I mean, to stay safe. I did have a pretty hairy cycle ride home though - had to dodge a group of youths and nearly got taken out by a couple of riot vans screaming along the road. I'm really glad I'm not at work tomorrow as I work in Sutton which could easily kick off. Hope everyone else is safe.
 
My thoughts are with the people of England, I hope things get back under control soon.

I also hope the government response isn't a knee jerk reaction, but instead is intelligent and poised as what we've seen recently in Norway.
 
I just saw whole city blocks burning down in the TV news. Holy crap... :( that's worse than what I could imagine. Stay safe, UKanians...

What I said before, about understanding some smashing up things? I meant that. But I didn't mean it on this scale.
 
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That's a coincidence, I got that link and a message emailed to me a couple of hours ago.

It had a few CCTV stills of ne'redowells and lods of pics of recovered bling.

Blackbery UK site was defaced and they have threaten that if they help police, that their employee details will be given to rioters!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/09/london-riots-day-four-live-blog

D'oh! Too late!

Blackberry have been helping the cops for days, and have asked to see if they can shut off BBM in certain areas at times. The bad guys are not using Twitter or FB, but BBM to meet up before goin'-a-rioting.

Ealing in west London, looks a bit of a mess on the TV News after lots of shops, restaurants and pubs were trashed & looted yesterday.
Those that weren't have either not opened AT ALL today or closed mid-afternoon. I've not been down to look today because it is all taped off in places.

I'm surprised that there are reports of some disorder in London again, lots of cops deployed and angry politicians in London.

LOL Boris, he's back from holiday, NOW I feel safe. :lol:
 
Fortunately my Aunt, who lives in Croydon, was no-where near the area when things were happening there, and her home is fine too. She got confused by a text or two checking up on her from family as she was on the move and had no idea of what was going on anyway.

As for other things; we went round the M25 up to St Albans today and the Sony factory up at Enfield is really smoldering, and very clearly visible from the motorway. And everywhere else. There was a helicopter circling it when we headed home; so there should be some very pretty shots of a beautiful red sunset with just the smoke, which can be seen everywhere you can get high enough - we could see it from the Dartford bridge, easy. No pictures from me as I was driving, but a very beautiful and yet not sight.

Lets hope the police can control everything today.
 
Update on Bristol looting:

Sum total of trouble was some teenagers committing a smash and grab on a jewelers. About 8 involved, 5 have already been arrested.
 
Is that all that's been damaged in Bristol so far, or? I heard something about Cabot Cirus but it wasn't exactly detailed.

Smashed windows in McDonalds, Jewlers broken into & a few burned out cars was the lot.

Bristol SG were forming up to head over to London to help out. When things started to develop here the they flooded the place with riot police.

We've got the added benefit of having recently had the Battle of Tesco, so our riot police have recent experience and know the usual suspects. Unlike in London they were making baton rushes as below.

 
Am I the only one getting some flash backs to the '68ers riots in Germany? I don't foresee any radical RAF-esque terror groups forming out of this, but I do see a lot of parallels. Ohnesorg's death, violent escalation by protestors, previous protests (uni students from the past year or two), etc.

The '68 movement was politically motivated and very intellectual. Their future in life was not at stake.

However, from what I read and saw, the mob in Britain couldn't care less about ideologies or politics, they are simply without hope and perspective for their lives. And as I understand it, social unrest and discrimination also plays a role.

For Germany, I think the next terrorist group here will arise from protesters against projects like Stuttgart 21. The NIMBY's will become militant.

And I'm serious about that.
 
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BBC Sport - England match against the Netherlands off after riots

The friendly footbal international was for Wednesday 10th August.

Probably not a problem with the match crowds, but it takes thousands to cops to police a match at Wembley and the cops are short of manpower because of the riots. The Policing operation would normally run from 17:00 until midnight, which is just when the little fuckers go rioting.

:rolleyes:
 
I think what sickens me most is the fact that the rioters seek to absolve themselves from all blame.

They would rather blame the government, immigrants or rich people for their problems, rather than try to do anything to resolve them for themselves. There is no protest in this riot; it's just a bunch of opportunist thugs looking for a fight and a free TV.

As a society we have done all we can to help these people; universal education, universal health care, and a generous welfare state. Yet they're throwing this all back in our faces.
 
As a society we have done all we can to help these people; universal education, universal health care, and a generous welfare state. Yet they're throwing this all back in our faces.
Let's see what's missing from this list... ah yes, of course. Decent work opportunities.
 
I think what sickens me most is the fact that the rioters seek to absolve themselves from all blame.

They would rather blame the government, immigrants or rich people for their problems, rather than try to do anything to resolve them for themselves. There is no protest in this riot; it's just a bunch of opportunist thugs looking for a fight and a free TV.

As a society we have done all we can to help these people; universal education, universal health care, and a generous welfare state. Yet they're throwing this all back in our faces.

You know dam well some of thats bull.... For a start at least a third of colleges have jacked up fees to ?9,000 a year and many more are not far behind, probably landing students with debts of around ?40,000. In some of the riot areas 8 out of 13 youth clubs have been shut down.

One ex police commander said that some of those rioting never had a job, don't want a job, but want everything.

On another issue, part of the problem with police inaction is causing incidents like the one in Enfield where 70 locals armed with planks etc chased away a group of youths.
 
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