Rioting in London?

[Broomstick]

I believe there is an on-going investigation concerning that very question. Last I heard, Duggan did, unquestionably, have an illegal and loaded gun in his possession but I really don't know more than that. Whether he was using it in a threatening manner I don't know - has there been a determination made?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I believe there is an on-going investigation concerning that very question. Last I heard, Duggan did, unquestionably, have an illegal and loaded gun in his possession but I really don't know more than that. Whether he was using it in a threatening manner I don't know - has there been a determination made?

Well the news said that the bullet that hit the cops radio couldn't have been fired by him, apparently it came from one of the policeman's guns, they say it was likely a ricochet- they're going to hold an inquest to get to the bottom of it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Anyway after being caught way off balance on Monday and the authorities getting their shit together properly in the last 24 hours, the crowds have died down somewhat...

Hopefully they can get things under control, if they can't then the military will have to step in. The use of baton rounds and water cannons isn't just necessary, it's been long overdue.

Of course if this was happening in the US, I imagine people would be ordering guns[/i online, not just baseball bats

[Ryan Thunder]

Nonsense. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn´t riot. The government threatening to use excessive force is not one of them.

I'd think the government threatening to use excessive force would be a very good reason not to riot, but what does that have to do with what I was talking about?

[Zaune]

I heard a rumour the gun was found wrapped in a sock. If true, that means there's zero chance of recovering fingerprints (would a sock pick up DNA traces?), so unless we have multiple witnesses and/or CCTV footage to testify that Duggan picked up the gun and pointed it at the cops then we'll probably never know for sure.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I found this on MSN:

IPCC: 'no evidence' Duggan opened fire
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has declared there is "no evidence" to suggest that Mark Duggan used a handgun to fire at police before he was shot by armed officers.

A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to one that shoots live rounds, was recovered close to the scene of Mr Duggan's death.

The police watchdog issued a statement with results of ballistic tests carried out following the shooting saying: "At this stage there is no evidence that the handgun found at the scene was fired during the incident."

The watchdog also said a bullet lodged in a police radio at the scene was a "jacketed round" - a police-issue bullet consistent with those fired from a Heckler and Koch MP5 - a machine pistol issued to firearms officers.

The investigation confirmed that Mr Duggan's death came after two shots were fired by a Scotland Yard firearms officer.

Rachel Cerfontyne, the IPCC commissioner, stressed the need for a full and thorough inquiry: "I also have a responsibility to balance the need to provide information with the need to avoid adversely affecting other judicial and coronial processes.

"This means that it would not be appropriate for me to put all the information we receive into the public domain when we receive it. I assure you that our findings will be made public as soon as we can legally and legitimately do so," she said.

Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four, was killed from a gunshot wound to the chest on Thursday.

A peaceful protest over the police shooting of Duggan sparked riots that are currently sweeping the nation.

The first night of violent rioting erupted in Tottenham on Saturday evening.

Scotland Yard have appealed for calm in the wake of the results saying they "appreciate that it is frustrating" for people to have to wait for the outcome of the investigation.

Link

[SpaceMarine93]

Oh boy, the London police are in SERIOUS trouble.

[Broomstick]

Of course if this was happening in the US, I imagine people would be ordering guns[/i online, not just baseball bats

Ammo, actually - there are already quite a few guns in US households.

Although with two well-equipped gun shops within walking distance of my home I wouldn't even need to go on-line, and that's assuming I didn't find the crossbow I already own sufficient. Even Wal-Mart sells guns and ammo in my neighborhood.

That makes and enormous difference between US and UK riots - sure, the wood planks, stones, beer bottles, and metal pipes wielded by rioters in the UK can be deadly weapons, but they aren't ranged weapons like actual firearms. It would be quite an unequal contest if you sent in trained soldiers with real guns. In the US, soldiers firing into the crowd face the real possibility of serious return fire. To return briefly to the Detroit riots, on July 24, 1967 forty National Guardsmen spent most of the day pinned down by civilian snipers. It certainly didn't help that among the items looted from stores were about 2500 guns. I just don't see that happening in the UK today, do you? As bad as these London riots have been things still could have been worse. Really, in a sense the UK police have the luxury of selecting levels of force - in the US it goes up to "lethal" all too quickly.

Maybe that's part of what's disturbing me about all this - while my parents shielded me from much of what was going on, and I was too young to really understand it, I am old enough to remember the fear from the riots in the 60's. It was a very, very, very ugly time.

[Zaune]

Oh boy, the London police are in SERIOUS trouble.

Actually, they're probably fairly safe now. It's the police in the cities who've been stripped of everyone with proper public order training who should be worrying right now.

That makes and enormous difference between US and UK riots - sure, the wood planks, stones, beer bottles, and metal pipes wielded by rioters in the UK can be deadly weapons, but they aren't ranged weapons like actual firearms. It would be quite an unequal contest if you sent in trained soldiers with real guns. In the US, soldiers firing into the crowd face the real possibility of serious return fire.

If there's anywhere in the mainland UK where this isn't quite true, it's many of these hotspots. Most of the guns floating around on the black market are absolute crap, homemade botch jobs an wartime antiques that are as likely to blow the user's hand off as actually take down a target in proper body armour, but there's everything up to and including Kalashnikov-type assault rifles out there if you've got a couple of thousand quid to spend and know the right people. Neither will there be as much of a shortage of somewhat competent firearms users as you might think; we've got immigrants from every country in the world in our cities, including plenty of former conscripts.

And however bad Detroit was in '67, that was just the one city. This is happening in five cities simultaneously and is probably going to spread still further, as pulling officers in from neighbouring forces leaves their home counties vulnerable.

[Broomstick]

Although not well known, and not quite as serious as what occurred in Detroit, during those same multi-day riots National Guardsmen also had to be deployed to Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw, and Grand Rapids Michigan. Also Toledo, Ohio. And the Windsor, Ontario police also lent assistance. So yes, actually, the Detroit Riot of 1967 actually did involve more than one city, and actually involved some Canadian police as well (mostly involved in booking and fingerprinting so the US cops could concentrate on dealing with the crowds).

It's actually unusual for a major riot NOT to spill over into other cities. This week's riot will be known as the London Riot of 2011, with a footnote saying "and other cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, etc...."

[Zaune]

Fair enough then, though I suspect our government has a rather smaller pool of manpower to draw on than Romney Sr did; there's pretty much no intermediate tier in the UK between county police forces and frontline troops, both of which have longstanding issues with a shortage of personnel.

[salm]

Nonsense. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn´t riot. The government threatening to use excessive force is not one of them.

I'd think the government threatening to use excessive force would be a very good reason not to riot, but what does that have to do with what I was talking about?

[Zaune]

Three men have been killed in Birmingham after being run down by a car, apparently while confronting rioters. Not clear if it was deliberate yet. The Guardian's liveblog says that the riots have spread to Wolverhampton, Gloucester, West Bromwich and Birkenhead. It also has the first report of a shot being fired during the rioting, unconfirmed so far.

I don't think the government can avoid sending in the army for much longer. They've only managed to get London under control by pulling in half the riot squads in the country.

[His Divine Shadow]

That makes and enormous difference between US and UK riots - sure, the wood planks, stones, beer bottles, and metal pipes wielded by rioters in the UK can be deadly weapons, but they aren't ranged weapons like actual firearms. It would be quite an unequal contest if you sent in trained soldiers with real guns. In the US, soldiers firing into the crowd face the real possibility of serious return fire. To return briefly to the Detroit riots, on July 24, 1967 forty National Guardsmen spent most of the day pinned down by civilian snipers. It certainly didn't help that among the items looted from stores were about 2500 guns. I just don't see that happening in the UK today, do you? As bad as these London riots have been things still could have been worse. Really, in a sense the UK police have the luxury of selecting levels of force - in the US it goes up to "lethal" all too quickly.

There are gunshops in London, all the manual repeating rifles you can want, and semi auto .22lrs and shotguns. So if someone where to break in there... Though I gather they have beefy security.

[Zaune]

Comment Is Free post that offers the best summary of how we got to this stage in Britain that I've read so far.

baggypants

10 August 2011 12:28AM

As a retired Greater Manchester Police officer I was aghast at the damage to my beloved city. My first reaction was to grab my old truncheon and drive into the city centre to whack some of the buggers.
On reflection I mused on the process of deracination of the working class that has occurred over the last few decades.What do these gang members,thugs, feral youths want?.
Perhaps they want the good life as exemplified by our Old Etonian, Bullingdon club members who now control the country. ( we are all in this together!!). They could perhaps aspire to win the lottery- 160 million at the latest. Perhaps they could join a boy/girl band and win a talent contest on Saturday prime time TV. Perhaps even become a semi literate, foul mouthed football player and pull in 150K per week.. What they cannot get is a decent job.There is something rotten at the hearth of british society and it needs sorting.

As a retired GM Police Officer you must have been involved in the action against the mine workers in the 1980s. The Police were used as weapon against people fighting to save their jobs, their homes, their communities, and their way of life, against state sponsored pillaging and destruction.

At the time you were doing your job in accordance with your contract and oath, and I take no issue with that. The London Riots give us a very faint glimpse of what life might be like without a strong and dependable Police Force.

But can you not see the parallels with the present day, and the scars left by thirty years of mass unemployment, and the depletion of training, skills, and opportunity? Ways of life were replaced with menial temporary jobs, and social housing with short term private tenancies. The Civil Service promoted job security, stable homes, and gilt edged retirement pensions, as articles of faith during periods of intense social upheaval... and rubber stamped the measures that deprived millions of similar benefits.

Now the article of faith has become "I have to work hard, so why should I pay for Them to sit idle?" And those without the benefit of stable prosperous employment are expected to accept the leftovers with gratitude and respect for those more fortunate.

We've seen a lot in the papers about Anger and Injustice, now that civil service pensions have come under review... but at the same time the less fortunate are threatened with complete withdrawl of Any security if they're not prepared to jump through hoops chasing non-existant or blatantly exploitative 'jobs'. These people aren't going to join the protests over cuts in civil service jobs and pensions.

Greed and Envy have fuelled the present Govenment Policy against Cheats and Scroungers on the sick or the dole. The Greed of Taxpayers who wnt their (frequently Government Funded) Jobs with lower taxes... the greed of Property Owners who are the real cause of excessive Housing benefits... and Envy of those who manage a basic lifestyle without having to go out to work. But the Government now promoting greed and envy is a continuation of the Government that institutionalised unemployement, with the use of force, in the 1980s.

So now we have an underclass of young people with no allegience to society, no training opportunities, no prospects of meaningful employment, and no way of establishing a stable and permenant home. The costly private tennancies which benefit wealthy landowners have been bought with the erosion tennants rights and standard agreements of three to six months. Faced with the prospect of a massive squeeze on their already precarious lifestyles, it's no wonder they're angry, contemptuous, and destructive. Their example is set by those who ruthlessly exploit the economy for their own benefit, without a thought for the lives of those who have to face the consequences.

And they're not served or protected by the Police, whose job it is to suppress and contain them. Those who ask who's to blame should look in a mirror; because we all are. If we don't change society to promote opportunities for all, rather than profit for a few, then the pressures and frustrations that caused the present outburst will continue to build, and erupt in escalating violence.

[Starglider]

Summary from the BBC of events last night;

* There was unrest in cities including Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham with shops being looted and set alight.

* Three men died when they were hit by a car in Birmingham - locals claim they were protecting their neighbourhood.

* Some 108 people have been arrested so far over trouble in Manchester and Salford where crowds of youths have set fire to buildings and cars while 87 have been arrested over disorder which has broken out across the West Midlands.

* West Midlands Police have started a murder inquiry after three pedestrians were run over and killed. It is not known if the incident is linked to overnight rioting but it is thought the men were protecting their neighbourhood at the time

* Greater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said his force had faced "extraordinary levels of violence from groups of criminals intent on committing widespread disorder" on Tuesday. Many police cordons that were around the area were lifted just before 02:00 BST

* Some 23 people have been charged in the West Midlands with a total of 229 arrests following sporadic disorder in Wolverhampton, while youths have smashed shop windows and set cars alight in nearby West Bromwich

* In Birmingham, riot police surrounded the Mailbox, the city's high-end shopping centre, following the disturbances seen in the area on Monday night.

* Canning Circus police station in central Nottingham was firebombed by a male gang on Tuesday evening

* In Liverpool, Merseyside Police have arrested 50 people in relation to disorder in the city

* Nine people have been arrested in Gloucester after police officers came under attack from youths throwing rocks and bottles from 23:00 BST

* In Leicester, a group of up to 100 youths attacked shops and threw items at police

* Metropolitan Police have arrested 768 people and charged 105 in connection with the violence in the capital, including a 21-year-old man who was arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life following a fire which took hold of the Reeves Furniture store in Croydon on Monday night

* A 26-year-old man found shot in a car in Croydon, amid rioting in the south London town, has died in hospital

* Government minister Michael Gove has praised Met's response to the riots, saying bringing in an extra 10,000 officers helped to prevent further riots from taking place in London

* Meanwhile, two 18-year-olds were arrested in Folkestone, Kent, and a 16-year-old boy in Glasgow was charged with breach of the peace while another man, aged 18, has been arrested. All relate to allegations of inciting violence through internet social networking sites

* Scotland Yard drafted in special constables and community support officers to ensure five times the usual number of officers for a Tuesday were on duty.

* 111 Met officers suffered injuries including serious head and eye wounds, cuts and fractured bones after being attacked by rioters wielding bottles, planks, bricks and even driving cars at them. Five police dogs have also been hurt.

Chatter around me in the City of London is overwhelminglysupportive of the police and condemning 'political correctness' and 'left-wing anarchists' who have incited the violence (e.g. anarchist leaflets found) and tied the hands of the police. What you'd expect really from finance industry workers. On the plus side, they want the rioters 'locked up for a long time' rather than 'shot' as the HPCA bunnies are calling for.

[weemadando]

...sooooo can we stop calling it riots and just start calling it what it really is - scumbags looting?

Because there's no fucking politics behind it anymore, no motive other than personal profit.

[Big Orange]

Comment Is Free post that offers the best summary of how we got to this stage in Britain that I've read so far.
*Snip*

The craven property damage, the bullying (some rioters stripped bystanders naked), the handful of deaths, and grand larceny displayed by the rioters has not earned them much sympathy and the public's attitudes have been irreversibly hardened in a watershed moment (and no doubt people will get even more angered by the platitudes of the Human Right's Act, a reasonable Act for only reasonable people; not Morlocks), but I mostly agree with what was said in that post.

The ultimate culprits for this mess - the UK's social fabric torn to shreds in the last three decades - are the politicians and businessmen who are cowering behind security better than what the poor ordinary schmucks had when their homes and businesses got torched. The fragmentation and dislocation of the UK economy first brought about by the Conservatives to maximise profits at the cost of the Greater Good helped to create an underclass of Morlocks with nothing to lose (with the borders opened to cheaper foreign workers being the death blow for many locals finding shitty jobs), but also the subsidising of single mothers by the Labourites helped to make these Morlocks breed like rabbits with fuck all jobs to provide genuine support (the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and all that). And it will be only a matter of time when the Middle class, left behind by the death of Capitalism, will have a similar snapping point when there's nothing to lose, but by then the anti-riot infrastructure will be more formidable...

[Crazedwraith]

Interestingly, looking at news reports from Derby and BBC video about Manchester is that a some of these people are not unemployed young people. They're actually youths. We're talking about 14 or 15 year olds running around in gangs trying to loot whatever they can get here.

[Big Orange]

Yes but many of them are no doubt being led and goaded on by older unemployable adults (some punks arrested in London are well into their 40s).

[Zaune]

Interestingly, looking at news reports from Derby and BBC video about Manchester is that a some of these people are not unemployed young people. They're actually youths. We're talking about 14 or 15 year olds running around in gangs trying to loot whatever they can get here.

You think they can't see the writing on the wall for them once they're out of school? That they haven't watched their older siblings, their friends in the year above them, even some of their parents go through the same thing? This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own something that isn't third-hand from Cash Converters or the Salvation Army, of course they're looting whatever they can!

[Big Orange]

I fucking knew something like this was going to happen sooner rather than later, I knew Neo-Liberal Globalization would eventually spawn something similar to the Bagaudae movement in the UK, with a desperate underclass stealing shiny things promised to them through excessive corporate advertising but denied to them through the mechanism of corporate kleptocracy (a broken system destroying itself).

[Dartzap]

I'm not so sure of that, BO. first few people through the courts all seem to have had jobs (mainly teachers or TA's, for some reason) which lends more credence to them just taking advantage of the situation to have a jolly.

[Broomstick]

...sooooo can we stop calling it riots and just start calling it what it really is - scumbags looting?

"Scumbags looting" en masse is a riot.

Because there's no fucking politics behind it anymore, no motive other than personal profit.

Where did this notion come from that there has to be politics behind a riot? It stopped being about politic the 2nd night, if not sooner.

[Zaune]

I fucking knew something like this was going to happen sooner rather than later, I knew Neo-Liberal Globalization would eventually spawn something similar to the Bagaudae movement in the UK, with a desperate underclass stealing shiny things promised to them through excessive corporate advertising but denied to them through the mechanism of corporate kleptocracy (a broken system destroying itself).

That's almost exactly what I just said, only with more polysyllables.

Edit: This is not going to help any.