PHOTOS: The Guardian, Getty, Demotix Images
Dozens are injured and there are almost 50 arrests after hundreds of rioters and looters set vehicles and entire buildings ablaze and launched fireworks at police in North London's predominately Caribbean and African district of Tottenham.
Watch video of the violence AFTER THE JUMP ...
The Saturday night riots began as a peaceful protest over the death of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old man and father of four, who was killed Thursday by officers from the Metropolitan Police. The special unit was investigating gun crime and "stopped a minicab which Mr Duggan had been travelling in," reports BBC.
Twenty-six officers and three others were hurt in the violence which erupted after a protest over the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan on Thursday. The Metropolitan Police warned over "ill-informed speculation" on social networking sites of further problems. The people arrested remain in custody for offences including violent disorder, burglary and theft. [...]
BBC crime reporter Ben Ando said there were rumours in the community that a teenage girl who was part of the peaceful protest had been in a kind of confrontation with police. He said: "That appears to be the flashpoint. That was the moment at around about just after eight o'clock when it seemed that elements in the crowd decided to pick on two police cars. They were then set on fire."
The teenage girl at the center of the protests may have thrown something at police, a witness tells The Guardian.
Laurence Bailey "holed up in a church 10 metres away from the Tottenham riot". He told the Guardian that he saw the girl "throw some card and something else, maybe a stone, at the original riot police line".
Bailey said the girl was then "pounded by 15 riot shields". He said that the police "launched into her with startling force using both batons and shields. She went down on the floor but once she managed to get up she was hit again before being half-dragged away by her friend." He added: "After she was removed there were a few minutes of peace and then lots of glass bottles started being thrown, we could hear them."
Read The Guardian's fantastic live blog HERE.
Witnesses and reporters are criticizing the police and fire response. By 3AM an "enormous fire raged in a blocklong building, with no sign of police or fire department intervention," reports the New York Times. "Even while residents raced to drive their cars away as the building’s windows exploded and glass rained down on them. Giant fires raged in alleys, unabated."
The looting was extensive and numerous "cash machines [were] ripped out in Tottenham," reports BBC.
The Metropolitan Police's Trident Unit aggressively counters gun crime in Tottenham and other predominately Black areas in North London. This is the same area where there was a brutal anti-gay assault last August. Three 3 youths and an adult man broke into a house and stabbed a man 12 times because they suspected he was a "gay batty man."
Watch video of the violence AFTER THE JUMP ...
Rod, thank you so much for this story.
Damn, the London police don't even know if Duggan actually fired a gun, here.
Posted by: Chitown Kev | 07 August 2011 at 16:05
He didn't fire a gun. The bullet that was found lodged in the police radio was determined to have actually belonged to the police. That's the story that I'm getting from a friend of mine who lives in Enfield, a borough in North London close to Tottenham. She's holed up in her home just listening to all of the madness outside.
Posted by: Osiris | 07 August 2011 at 23:30
Rod, thanks for all your speedy and impactful reporting.
Posted by: Andrew | 08 August 2011 at 06:44
It's becoming hellish everywhere nowadays.
Posted by: Honut Sinti | 08 August 2011 at 20:32
People are hurting. The disparity between the haves & have nots has widened to such a degree that the have nots are resorting to behavior that I'm sure not even they/we thought they/we would. God bless us all.
Posted by: CAM Jr | 08 August 2011 at 22:01