London Burning

I highly doubt those masks are made of any thing flame/heat retardent.

I always assumed they were made of Nomex, like racing drivers wear.

Maybe not, they just wanna look like ninjas. :ninja:
 
They don't want you to see how scared they are.
 
Watching Question Time with steam coming out of my ears. Our officers put their lives on the line for these people and get no support

ACC Garry Shewan
@ACCGarryShewan Greater Manchester
Assistant Chief Constable with GMP. I lead on Neighbourhood Policing and I am ACPO lead for Restorative Justice as well as Stalking and Harassment

http://www.bbc.co.uk/questiontime

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Britain Looks to U.S. for Advice Combating Riots

Britain said Thursday that it would seek U.S. law enforcement advice on fighting gang violence as the U.K. deals with riots that have gripped several of the country's cities.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who has summoned lawmakers back to Parliament because of the crisis, said he would act ?decisively to restore order on our streets,? and he cited prominent U.S. police chief Bill Bratton as a potential source for advice.

Bratton, whose resume includes top cop jobs in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, said in a written statement that he would ?be honored? to assist the British.
Since the riots first started, London's Metropolitan Police have been widely criticized for its slow and inadequate response. The situation has deteriorated to the point where citizens are forced to stand guard in front of their homes and businesses because of the lack of police presence.

For the first time, its deputy assistant commissioner admitted Thursday that the force did not deploy enough officers to control the outbreak of violence early on in the riots. Cameron also acknowledged shortcomings by police. He said they treated the early riots as a ?public order issue? rather than a crime problem.
And according to law enforcement experts in the U.S., the first few hours are pivotal.

Bill Gavin, the former head of the FBI in New York, told Fox News that there?s a philosophical difference between London police and its U.S. cousin departments. In particular, London failed to deploy an overwhelming force to halt the rioters.

?The time for reasoning is after you?ve controlled them,? Gavin said, adding that Bratton would serve as a suitable adviser.

Bratton?s experience with law enforcement is extensive and diverse. He reduced gang-related crimes in Boston and Los Angeles. He has worked with the British in the past, and was given an honorary title by Queen Elizabeth II in 2009, Reuters reported.

"There are many lessons from these experiences that I believe are relevant to the current situation in England," Bratton said.
Britain's riots began Saturday when an initially peaceful protest over a police shooting in north London turned violent. That clash triggered wider lawlessness that police struggled to halt.
There are currently 16,000 police deployed on London's streets to deter rioters and reassure residents, and those forces are expected to remain through the weekend.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Too little, too late.
 
Also, asking the wrong departments/cities.

Edit:
Bill Gavin, the former head of the FBI in New York, told Fox News that there?s a philosophical difference between London police and its U.S. cousin departments. In particular, London failed to deploy an overwhelming force to halt the rioters.

?The time for reasoning is after you?ve controlled them,? Gavin said, adding that Bratton would serve as a suitable adviser.

This. Though Bratton wouldn't be my first choice of US advisor, his policies would certainly be a massive improvement over what they have now.

Bill Gavin makes the point I've been getting at. As long as they're more interested in rioting, looting, burning the city down and killing/maiming/raping/etc., the inhabitants, they cannot be reasoned with short of overwhelming and graphic force. Beat them down, contain them, get them to stop and then you can sit down and figure it out. The oh-so-PC 'conflict resolution' crap doesn't work with rioters. Hell, it doesn't actually work most of the time in the real world. Once you have them stopped then you can figure out the underlying problems are and resolve them.

Things like the LA Riots and London Riots aren't like soccer or sporting event riots. They work on fundamentally different principles and soccer riot suppression techniques will not work (and obviously, they didn't here.) Compared to a real riot, sporting event riots are like wading in the children's end of the pool at a water park versus going swimming in the oceans off Australia. Kinda sorta look the same, but aren't really.

Finally, once things have calmed down some, the government and the society need to sit down and identify what failed - not just in the policing effort but in the environment and expectations generated by society - then attempt to fix as much as possible. The challenge here is that fixing the problems successfully will involve getting a lot of people very angry and may result in more riots. However, NOT fixing the problems will result in much larger riots - and worse. There's only 4000-odd years of history proving that.
 
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So, you actually endorse Syria- and Iran-style internet cuts? Now you are firmly running on the sharia platform as Mayor of Hull.

No, if they ban Twitter and Blackberry. Then people would move to other messenger services.
 
I don't have time to comment on this fully at the moment, but I thought I would toss this in here. Keep in mind that I'm having to be brief here, so I'm sure I won't get to touch on everything I'd like to even in this segment.

[common sense]
Spectre, that was a brilliant piece of analysis and I am quite happy with it coming from someone who's opinion can not be done away as being "leftist do-gooder" talk.

This Spider-Man mantra, "With great power comes great responsibility" used to work for the rich as well: Industy barons like Krupp in Germany (I know, he provided war machinery to all the wrong people but that has nothing to do with my point) and I think most others of their generation took pride in caring for their workers. Up until the stock market madness took off for the first time in, I think, the 80s, the idea of running a company was producing good while making a profit, which means that there was leverage to feed the workforce through touch times and so on. Nowadays, a company's main goal is to maximize profit, no matter what. Actually producing something, be it cars or the Dicke Berta or computers or ideas, has become a side-effect of profit.

It might sound like communism, but I think there should be a law agains companies making a healthy profit laying off people to make a bigger profit in the next quarter because the shareholders/stock markets demand it.

Regarding the question of police officer markings: We got this debate in Germany for some time now, with civil right groups demanding for every cop to wear a unique unifier, preferrably a name tag even on riot gear, as videos surface on YouTube of cops beating up students (on the "freedom not fear" rally, none the less) and peaceful soccer fans.
The conservatives, while at the same time demanding a law that forces Germans to use their real name when posting online, say that unique identifiers would put the lives of the officers at risk ("this pesky do-badders will visit them at their homes!") and will be the end of efficient policing.
Right now the cops are identified by unit numbers, which they exchange with their colleagues (it's not unusual to see cops with different numbers on their helmets and uniforms) or simply cover them up with duct tape.

People of Britain, don't let your government drag you down that road.

EDIT: I am not playing blame the coppers, it's just that cops are people, too. Especially in a high-stress situation like riot control or guarding a political rally or a soccer game, the knowledge one can get away with heineous acts might get the better of some people (not unlike some of the looters).

Cops in Germany are required to hand their "Dienstnummer" ("service number, an unique identifier) to anyone who asks even during rallies and such. Guess what I got when asking once? "Shove it!"

No, if they ban Twitter and Blackberry. Then people would move to other messenger services.
OK, sorry for that, then.
 
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Why is that justified though?

I never said it was justified. I said it is not surprising.

As much as people will say "I can't believe that there are rich corrupt people out there who are willing to tread on the poor to remain wealthy" what is neglected is the fact the amount of people who wouldn't do that are very, very few.

Short of becoming a communist country (and I'm talking proper, complete equality here, not the former USSR or North Korea which were/are, of course, dictatorships under the guise of communism) there is no way to abolish class divide and some people simply being more wealthy than others. And as we know communism, outside of theory, simply does not work.

I am fully aware of this fact. I am perfectly fine with a meritocratic society, as long as it really is meritocratic and gives everyone the opportunity of being successful. Today our societies are not this way (they are no more), even if we are constantly told they are.

The world has always worked under a system where certain people are powerful and rich and others are not. Obviously this is a horrible way for it to work, with people being born into money and never lifting a finger to work in their life, but it is the the hierarchy that the world grown under since early civilisations, be it for better or worse.

And it generates countless contrasts and tensions and every now and then, when things get hard, it brings about revolts, revolutions or just plain violence.

So many people grown up being promised things ("buy these clothes, your friends will think you're cool... they just happen to be twice the price of un-branded ones and of worse quality...") and told that respect and money is all that matters and you can have it all. Of course it is a lie, most people never become massively rich, they end up living average lives and buying crap with fancy labels on it to make themselves feel like they have got somewhere.

Exactly. But when you grow up being told lies all the time, then you might start believing them, like these peope probably did. You can live with that, if you got money. But if you haven't, you might end up randomly and senselessly smashing stores up.

I never had to deal with peer-pressure, I left school and was essentially left to work out my own opinions and find what I want from life without much outside influence. What I want from my life is contentment, at this point I'm fairly sure that entails a job in IT tech support, a red brick terrace house and a Austin Allegro and buying half my (very good quality and long lasting btw) clothes 2nd hand.
Now society and the media may tell me that is an awful existence to want, and why on earth wouldn't I want to be rich or an Aston Martin or designer clothing?
But the fact is if you remove the pressure to be what is declared to be a "success", and to gain what is said to being "happiness" by the media and have the ability to sit back and think about what you really want out of life I bet you'd find a lot more people willing to settle for a comfortable life rather than massive riches...

Of course. It would be nice if everyone would be told this things since when they are children, so that they can choose what is enough for them.

Sadly of course, this isn't how the world works, and people want to be rich and "respected" because that is what they are told to want. In the same way they are told nobody in their right mind would be content with working as a lowly cleaner... yet if a Polish person happens to take the job its "stolen" from some good, honest local.

The peoples want what they are told to want by the media, they are told to want money and Gucci handbags. They resent rich people for having money and Gucci handbags, thus causing rage. If media wasn't allowed to do this shit, less people would want money/Gucci handbags, thus causing less rage.
There would still be some rage, because some people will still want money/Gucci handbags but hey, unless the world goes Communist the rage will always be present.

Give people a serious chance of having some proportionate goal and of making some achievable improvements in their own life, and give them the will to accomplish that, and not one of them will revolt. Revolt comes from the shatters of illusions. you need achievable dreams, to give energy to people, you need real opportunities to achieve them to set people at work, and you need a fair society (not where everyone is "equal", but where disparities are not too big) to avoid people deluding themselves. Then you will have little to no revolts.
 
Spectre, that was a brilliant piece of analysis and I am quite happy with it coming from someone who's opinion can not be done away as being "leftist do-gooder" talk.

Heh.

This Spider-Man mantra, "With great power comes great responsibility" used to work for the rich as well: Industy barons like Krupp in Germany (I know, he provided war machinery to all the wrong people but that has nothing to do with my point) and I think most others of their generation took pride in caring for their workers. Up until the stock market madness took off for the first time in, I think, the 80s, the idea of running a company was producing good while making a profit, which means that there was leverage to feed the workforce through touch times and so on. Nowadays, a company's main goal is to maximize profit, no matter what. Actually producing something, be it cars or the Dicke Berta or computers or ideas, has become a side-effect of profit.

It might sound like communism, but I think there should be a law agains companies making a healthy profit laying off people to make a bigger profit in the next quarter because the shareholders/stock markets demand it.

I don't have time to go into this in the depth I would like - something about this 'work' thing.

I would suggest that much of this 'profit for profit's sake' that's going around these days isn't just a result of 'greedier people' but the proliferation of MBA schools which teach all the wrong things. People go there to check off the 'has MBA' box on their career sheets, learn the supposed 'right way' to run a business, and then go back out into the career world - only to proceed to ruin everything. You'll note that it's usually not the founders of companies doing this either, but their successors.

I'd also point out that at least in America, we also had the much derided plutocrats and robber barons of Krupp's generation, and they weren't great about taking care of their workers. Around the turn of the century, a guy named Henry Ford (perhaps you've heard of him) pointed out (through the best means - overwhelming business success) that taking care of the people making you the vast amounts of money doesn't actually cost very much in the long run and it pays large dividends that you can actually put down in the ledger of accounts. Also, you can and should look into Andrew Carnegie, who I don't have time to write about, as an example of how many of the robber baron types reconsidered due to Ford or due to their own origins. Without Carnegie, half the continent would probably still be struggling with literacy, no kidding.

One reason generosity like that went away was because of the increasing complication of the tax codes (at least in the US.) Initially, taxation was simple - if you gave away money, you didn't have to pay tax on it. Since we had essentially confiscatory taxation above a certain dollar level, the rich people can and did give away vast sums of money because they weren't going to be able to keep it anyway. (No, this is NOT an endorsement for higher taxation on the rich simply because they are rich - read on.) As time went on, tax rates were relaxed and the rich didn't have to dump it or lose it to the government. However, they continued to donate at about the same rates despite lower taxation (Kennedy era.) The problem came in when the tax codes started becoming complex - at that point, rich people needed to have a crew of tax people on hand just to determine the correct amount of tax. Once you get to that point, as long as you have a staff of people whose entire jobs are to figure out what you owe the government each year, it costs you nothing extra to have them figure out how to make that amount as small as possible and keep as much as possible for yourself.

Prior to this, donation reduced your gross income on which you were taxed (as mentioned above). If you made $20 million and gave $15 million of it away, the amount of income on which you began your tax calculations was $5 million. (See confiscatory taxes, above.) You got to wipe all of it off your income. Heck of an inducement to give back to your community, isn't it? Now, not so much. You can't write off donations above a certain amount, you can't write off donations that aren't given to the right people, you can't, you can't, you can't, etc. And your base income tax calculations are based off what you took in, not what you took in less donations. Again - as long as you're going to make it difficult, etc., etc., people are going to fight to keep as much as they can.

I believe the solution is not more tax regulation, as you propose, but less and simpler. If you make it not worth the taxpayer's time to try to hoard every dollar away, they don't, and they tend to be far more generous. Same thing, I think, with many companies. (At some later point, I can detail my personal observations that lead to this idea if someone wants me to do so for their own consideration.)

Unfortunately the related societal issues are not nearly as easily solved. But I can tell you this - more handouts, more welfare and more free 'support' is obviously not the answer. That's just enabling the addiction and the problems. It might work for a while, like buying a junkie a fix, but the crash at the end gets worse and worse the more you enable.

Regarding the question of police officer markings: We got this debate in Germany for some time now, with civil right groups demanding for every cop to wear a unique unifier, preferrably a name tag even on riot gear, as videos surface on YouTube of cops beating up students (on the "freedom not fear" rally, none the less) and peaceful soccer fans.
The conservatives, while at the same time demanding a law that forces Germans to use their real name when posting online, say that unique identifiers would put the lives of the officers at risk ("this pesky do-badders will visit them at their homes!") and will be the end of efficient policing.

I thought I'd throw this in here, partially as a reminder - keep in mind that when we say "conservative", it means three almost totally different things depending on which of the three countries the main participants in this conversation happen to be in. I identify as a conservative little-l (as in, not associated with the official party of the same name) libertarian - you won't see me running around demanding people use real names on the internet. My general philosophy, politically, is "the government needs to leave me and everyone else alone, get out of our lives and go back to what it was actually set up to do." From my point of view, a UK conservative would be a moderate or centrist leaning Democrat, placing him on the left side of the US spectrum. A German conservative (again, from my viewpoint) appears to be of that sort that's in favor of a type of totalitarianism and despite what some here might believe would not be accepted amongst most conservatives in the US. (P.S. - evangelicals and conservatives are NOT the same thing, and there are evangelical leftists on the US spectrum - despite what some of our forum members and my former compatriots on the left would have you believe. :p ) I'm also a Social Darwinist, but that's another story entirely. :D

Exactly. But when you grow up being told lies all the time, then you might start believing them, like these peope probably did. You can live with that, if you got money. But if you haven't, you might end up randomly and senselessly smashing stores up.

That's what happened to me. My disillusionment with what I was told, even brainwashed, to believe began in 1992 when the city I lived in went on fire and I began discovering that most of everything I 'knew' was a lie.

I didn't, however, go burn down a building myself. :p

Give people a serious chance of having some proportionate goal and of making some achievable improvements in their own life, and give them the will to accomplish that, and not one of them will revolt. Revolt comes from the shatters of illusions. you need achievable dreams, to give energy to people, you need real opportunities to achieve them to set people at work, and you need a fair society (not where everyone is "equal", but where disparities are not too big) to avoid people deluding themselves. Then you will have little to no revolts.

I wouldn't even go that far. I would say that you could have the disparities be very large - but if, at the same time, you make it obvious that if someone works hard and applies themselves, they can also be up at the top of the heap, you would also see little to no revolts because everyone will instead be working their arses off to get up there - if such is the actual reality.
 
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^ Wonder does that mean Cameron's slash and burn military cuts will also be reversed.
You don't need a large army to quell riots. A small force of nincampoops is highly sufficient.

If you are so determined to make the police the bad guy in this whole thing, then yes, go ahead and show us where they have gone wrong in the past.
Does he really have to? We know they have done great injustices in the past, and that makes it important to watch police actions so we ensure no wrongdoing takes place now. That doesn't mean any of us are out to make the police the bad guys in this.

I would agree that wearing a balaclava under a riot shield is probably unnecessary, but just because it is being worn does not necessarily mean that the officer is planning to commit abuses.
No, but it has happened before, so there is a reason to look into it.

They don't want you to see how scared they are.
It's probably, partly so they all look the same. It's about scaring people psychologically, you're not met by a bunch of individuals, but by a mass of black clad scary riot police.

Guardian

[...]
At Camberwell Green magistrates, Nicholas Robinson, 23, an electrical engineering student with no previous convictions, was jailed for the maximum permitted six months after pleading guilty to stealing bottles of water worth ?3.50 from Lidl in Brixton. He had been walking back from his girlfriend's house in the early hours of Monday morning when he saw the store being looted, his lawyer said, and had taken the opportunity to go in and help himself to a case of water because he was thirsty. He was caught up in the moment, and was ashamed of his actions, his defence said.

But the prosecution told judge Alan Baldwin: "This defendant has contributed through his action to criminal activities to the atmosphere of chaos and sheer lawlessness." There were gasps from the public gallery as his sentence was delivered.
[...]
Six months. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, now looking like a banana republic.

Some years ago, a mate of mine lost his vallet while on a trip to Damaskus. He found it five hours later outside his hotel, on a busy street. Untouched. Because in Syria, it's illegal to be criminal.

So, if you want to stop all crime, it's easy. Jail people for ten years for stealing a vallet. While higher penalties don't usually work, they do if they're that off the scale, at least for crimes that's not usually comitted in passions (like murder).

However, you do have to jail people for ten years for minor offences. And I don't really think that's the right way to go about.

Giving someone six months for stealing ?3.50 worth of water is a disgrace. That magistrate should be ashamed of himself.
 
This equality stuff. You need to give people equality of opportunity, NOT everyone the same stuff.

That is where we go wrong - one small example was closing the Grammar schools. One way of avoiding giving ordinary 'clever' people the chance of going to a fully funded proper University.

Allowing everyone and their more stupid brother in, giving the ordinary a 50k GBP debt is no way to go on - many of these people will not benefit from Media Studies gained at the university of gormleshire, but will get the same debt as those getting a degree in Chemistry from say Imperial College London - a good University.

https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/registry/public/Student%20Financial%20Support/Minimum%20Annual%20Costs%202011-12%20-%20UG.pdf
 
You don't need a large army to quell riots. A small force of nincampoops is highly sufficient.

The British might disagree with you and say that they have discovered that you do need a certain level of intelligence and self control in your riot-quelling troops. They tried it by using freed violent prisoners as riot troops in Ireland, and I seem to recall that nobody was happy with the outcome after that.

Six months. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, now looking like a banana republic.

And to be fair, the US is not looking exactly real healthy or first rank ourselves at the moment. Neither, from my standpoint, is much of Europe far behind.

So, if you want to stop all crime, it's easy. Jail people for ten years for stealing a vallet. While higher penalties don't usually work, they do if they're that off the scale, at least for crimes that's not usually comitted in passions (like murder).

Well, first they would actually have to start jailing people and holding them in jail for any period. That Telegraph live page is listing stories of rioters getting long sentences... that are suspended, and then being sent home. Others are getting nasty sentences that are commuted to what we'd call probation. Looks good in the initial headlines, not so great a few days later. Before we start talking about potential cruelty of sentencing, I think we should actually wait to see if anyone actually has to serve any of these terms they're throwing about. It's the UK, so I strongly doubt it, no matter what the PM claims.

To be fair to PM Cameron, he doesn't actually have the power to actually make the judicial system do anything. On the other hand, he should also have started proposing reforms long before this event happened.
 
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Six months. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, now looking like a banana republic.

The mentality is exceptional sentences for exceptional circumstances.
 
Giving someone six months for stealing ?3.50 worth of water is a disgrace. That magistrate should be ashamed of himself.

This sort of thinking is bullshit, you are feeling sorry for someone who rioted and looted and putting the blame for the consequences of his actions on the courts. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? its not the fault of the courts for giving you a heavy sentence its the person's fault for committing the illegal act/s and the court handing down the maximum sentence appropriate (a magistrates court can only hand down sentences of a maximum of 6 months, for higher sentences the case needs to be referred up to a Crown Court)
 
The British might disagree with you and say that they have discovered that you do need a certain level of intelligence and self control in your riot-quelling troops. They tried it by using freed violent prisoners as riot troops in Ireland, and I seem to recall that nobody was happy with the outcome after that.
Yeah. But it doesn't take several hundered thousands of troops to control Britain.

And to be fair, the US is not looking exactly real healthy or first rank ourselves at the moment. Neither, from my standpoint, is much of Europe far behind.
Perhaps.

Well, first they would actually have to start jailing people and holding them in jail for any period. That Telegraph live page is listing stories of rioters getting long sentences... that are suspended, and then being sent home. Others are getting nasty sentences that are commuted to what we'd call probation. Looks good in the initial headlines, not so great a few days later. Before we start talking about potential cruelty of sentencing, I think we should actually wait to see if anyone actually has to serve any of these terms they're throwing about. It's the UK, so I strongly doubt it, no matter what the PM claims.
There are cases that warrant a strong custodial sentence. Stealing a couple of bottles of water does not.

To be fair to PM Cameron, he doesn't actually have the power to actually make the judicial system do anything. On the other hand, he should also have started proposing reforms long before this event happened.
A Prime Minister starting to say that people will get prison sentences is wrong anyway. A Prime Minister should never pre-judge anyone, that's just rethoric toughness, it's idiotic.

The mentality is exceptional sentences for exceptional circumstances.
Which is what I feel is wrong. Stop treating these people like they are worthy of special treatment. Punish them as you would normally, making exceptions never really make any sense.

This sort of thinking is bullshit, you are feeling sorry for someone who rioted and looted and putting the blame for the consequences of his actions on the courts. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? its not the fault of the courts for giving you a heavy sentence its the person's fault for committing the illegal act/s and the court handing down the maximum sentence appropriate (a magistrates court can only hand down sentences of a maximum of 6 months, for higher sentences the case needs to be referred up to a Crown Court)
Jmsprovan, are you intentionally misrepresenting my opinions, or are you confusing me with someone else? Because I did not say that.

This guy was convicted of stealing a couple of bottles of water. He was not convicted of rioting. Either you can prove a charge, or you can't. If you can't, the possibility the guy did something else doesn't enter into it in a proper court system.

The sentence does not match the crime in this case. A lot of cases will be more appropriate, but six months for a couple of bottles of water? Are you kidding me? You think that's justice?

That's bollocks. It's just an overreaction. Let's hope we don't see lower standards of evidence in the coming weeks. Justice is blind to the sobbing eyes of the accused. But it is also deaf, deaf as an adder to the cries of the mob. Freely quoted from John Adams.

If a magistrate is sentencing after what's going on outside, he or she has failed.
 
Which is what I feel is wrong. Stop treating these people like they are worthy of special treatment. Punish them as you would normally, making exceptions never really make any sense.

The argument is that it isn't just a case of "robbery" but "robbery taking advantage of mass public disorder". Hence its the crimes themselves that are unusual rather than the treatment that the offenders are receiving.
 
This guy was convicted of stealing a couple of bottles of water. He was not convicted of rioting. Either you can prove a charge, or you can't. If you can't, the possibility the guy did something else doesn't enter into it in a proper court system.

The sentence does not match the crime in this case. A lot of cases will be more appropriate, but six months for a couple of bottles of water? Are you kidding me? You think that's justice?

That's bollocks. It's just an overreaction. Let's hope we don't see lower standards of evidence in the coming weeks. Justice is blind to the sobbing eyes of the accused. But it is also deaf, deaf as an adder to the cries of the mob. Freely quoted from John Adams.

If a magistrate is sentencing after what's going on outside, he or she has failed.

Sentences for robbery can go higher than 6 months, out of the 6 months handed to this guy he will probably serve 8 weeks on good behaviour maybe even less. Personally I don't think that is particularly harsh. On appeal it may even be changed to a suspended sentence where he serves it at home.
 
It was petty theft at best. If they guy broke the window to take it then I would agree that this was just, but that does not appear to be what happened.
 
My Swedish media tells me that according to the BBC the looters and rioters arrested do not live in the areas they're rioting in. Figures. I also like the turkish and kurdish shopkeepers who defended their area.
 
This morning the BBC interviewed some looters who drove around in a white van, stopping at various riot locations to fill it up with stolen merchandise.

You are correct. Some traveled a great distance to partake in the mayhem.
 
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