London Burning

Seems to have spread to Liverpool, lets see how this turns out...

This sort of scene the UK should get used to as it will only get worse unless the police are given the powers needed to stop this sort of thing.

Spectre, its not often i agree with you. but on this occasion you are right on the money.
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WHS.

This country is in such a state, a place where people will burn out peoples shops and cars for nothing more than a bit of fun. Not only that but most of these people are my generation, makes me ashamed to be associated with the youth of today... :(

Perhaps I should dye my beard grey and buy a cane...
 
I can appreciate that in Hackney and Tottenham it's kind of the last straw for communities that feel unfairly and constantly targeted, and it's a symptomatic outpouring of anger (to simplify it). But in Birmingham very few people are attempting to rationalise it - those that are, are saying that Birmingham's been unhappy for ages, with unemployment, Government cuts etc., which is admittedly true - but not the reason that rioting is occurring in Birmingham. Actually I think you could say that there's a significant difference between rioting and violent protest, which is whether there's a point being made and, often, specific targets for the violence. And in this case there isn't. There's an underlying cause but that was overwhelmed almost immediately by the opportunist criminals who just want to steal and vandalise.

Hopefully this'll totally mar the way history views this Government. Perhaps more so in the Midlands than London, with racial profiling seeming to be less of a spark here than mass unemployment, Govt. cuts, and a mass feeling of hopelessness that many people have about their lives and futures.

Not an excuse for the criminal behaviour at all, I might add, which is utterly unjustified and idiotic. But, seeing as it's happening, I want this to stain the coalition's reputation as much as possible.

Also, I just spent my birthday in Birmingham with some friends. We seem to have missed the trouble very narrowly - we left the Bullring at 6:20ish, which seems to be about ten or twenty minutes before it kicked off, went bowling at the other end of town, then drove home at 9:30 or so (seeing plenty of police but avoiding the riots). My friends looted* me a videocamera!

*bought
 
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So, do the police have anything besides their shields? What about tear gas and all that other riot stuff you hear about?

Not trying to be ignorant if it sounds like it, sorry.
 
Isn't it wonderful, that at the one time when kettling might have been a useful tool to contain and control a crowd, it's been ruled illegal because they've used it to make peaceful protesters.. less peaceful?

My God they must be proud. First they use a bonkers tool on bunches of innocent people. Then they end up without the use of that bonkers tool when it might have worked, sort of.

I guess this just happened to quick. That it didn't give them time to plan, like with the G20 and the likes. So they've had less people working, and less preperation.

Tbh., I don't think it would have been dealt with any differently pretty much any other place.
 
nomix said:
Isn't it wonderful, that at the one time when kettling might have been a useful tool to contain and control a crowd, it's been ruled illegal because they've used it to make peaceful protesters.. less peaceful?

My God they must be proud. First they use a bonkers tool on bunches of innocent people. Then they end up without the use of that bonkers tool when it might have worked, sort of.

I guess this just happened to quick. That it didn't give them time to plan, like with the G20 and the likes. So they've had less people working, and less preperation.

Tbh., I don't think it would have been dealt with any differently pretty much any other place.
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kettling wouldn't work when the kettle is on fire.
 
Well, at least it would fullfill the metafore, as we all know, putting something in a kettle makes it very hot. Yes, this is a bigger challenge from a kettling pov., but it might very well had been a useful asset to deploy some places and at some times.

And when you have a violent mob setting fire to everything they see, even I can accept the use of such means to contain and control a crowd. I'm just oposed to kettling when it's seemingly as useful as a cardboard pipe or the proverbial chocolate tea pot.
 
nomix said:
Well, at least it would fullfill the metafore, as we all know, putting something in a kettle makes it very hot. Yes, this is a bigger challenge from a kettling pov., but it might very well had been a useful asset to deploy some places and at some times.

And when you have a violent mob setting fire to everything they see, even I can accept the use of such means to contain and control a crowd. I'm just oposed to kettling when it's seemingly as useful as a cardboard pipe or the proverbial chocolate tea pot.
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I mean it literally, they can't kettle people against buildings which are on fire.
 
This a bit like the British army strategy in Afghanistan, never being able to hold the gains they make.

London Riots - Police Overrun in Woolwich
 
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Rubber bullets, teargas, beanbags, water hoses....................I assume the police are trained for this sort of thing? Are shop owners allowed to defend their shops?
 
jetsetter said:
Rubber bullets, teargas, beanbags, water hoses....................I assume the police are trained for this sort of thing? Are shop owners allowed to defend their shops?
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I think at the moment the main issue is that the police are very thinly spread and the rioters are in large numbers over a large area. It's not like the student protests when it was at a set place so police activity was at a high and the crowds could be held.

I do not believe you are actually allowed to defend your possessions, although I may be wrong. Even if you are it will then fall into the "what is considered reasonable force" issue and you'll have rioters suing shop owners for injuries...
 
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Spectre said:
I have to disagree with you on that. Most of the looters interviewed during and after the 92 LA Riots were 1) not of the aggrieved ethnicity, 2) didn't really care about why and 3) were just in it to steal 'free' stuff. The ones I observed didn't seem to be interested in redressing their grievances, just making off with anything that wasn't nailed down. And some things that were.

Now, the people committing arson, assault, murder, rape and such were often a different story.
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To modify my thesis here, then the looters are the parasites whom are being feed by the core of the group.

A fundamental point I missed is that once a mob is formed the reason for its inception becomes immaterial. There could be an anger among the more violent lot that is now being incarnated in mass distraction. Yes there are looters seizing the moment, but those committing arson and other destruction en mass probably have a pent up anger of some sort. If it is more than just a few doing this destruction it may be a sign of a deeper social wound.
 
I can tell you from the 92 riots I observed, yes, it's much like a zombie movie. As I'd posted elsewhere regarding what I'd learned from being up close and personal at that event:

{Riotous angry} mobs really *do* look and to some degree act like zombie hordes, except faster, slightly smarter, and more agile. All of which is bad news for the target of the mob.
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I'm hoping that nobody here has occasion to discover the validity of this statement for themselves. Hell, I wish *I* didn't know the validity of this statement.

argatoga said:
To modify my thesis here, then the looters are the parasites whom are being feed by the core of the group.

A fundamental point I missed is that once a mob is formed the reason for its inception becomes immaterial. There could be an anger among the more violent lot that is now being incarnated in mass distraction. Yes there are looters seizing the moment, but those committing arson and other destruction en mass probably have a pent up anger of some sort. If it is more than just a few doing this destruction it may be a sign of a deeper social wound.
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I would go further than that. Once you get to some critical mass, (what that is I couldn't say) you get a sort of mass hysteria in which many people just run amok because others are doing so. In other words, others not in that theorized core just join in the mayhem for no real reason whatsoever other than for the pleasure of destruction.

For example, I never did understand why people were just randomly torching palm trees in Los Angeles during the riots. It wasn't exactly making a statement, it's not like the trees were doing anything to people. Turns out that some of those doing so were arrested by the Guard in the closing days of the riots and when questioned many said that they were out there because other people were trashing things and they just wanted to destroy things, not for any ideological reason. Others said they burned them to protest inequality or unfair treatment. Still others refused to answer and appeared uncertain of why they had done such a thing in the first place.

Mind, that was things like palm trees and newspaper vending boxes, things that generally don't make much sense to destroy - though there were more of those destroyed than actual buildings and they contributed much to secondary fires and damage. People deliberately burning stores and homes were another matter entirely and yes, those did tend to be ideologically motivated - when they weren't using the (what David Drake calls 'party time') environment of the riots to settle old scores.
 
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