Violence flares in other parts of England
Posted August 10, 2011 6:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A beefed-up police presence successfully kept the peace on London streets Tuesday night, but violence flared in other parts of England, including Birmingham and Manchester, where mobs of young people smashed storefronts, looted, torched vehicles and set buildings ablaze for no apparent reason.
On Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said a contingency plan is in place to get water cannons to stop rioters within 24 hours.
“We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets,” he said.
There were 16,000 officers patrolling the English capital Tuesday night — about three times as many as were on the streets a night earlier. Police vans and armoured vehicles toured the empty streets lined with boarded-up buildings.
Police are investigating the deaths of three men in Birmingham who were struck by a car. Witnesses have claimed the victims were patrolling their neighbourhood to protect it from looters.
In Manchester, a wave of young people pushed through the city, looting and hurling objects at police. A women’s clothing store in the city’s shopping district was set ablaze, as was a library.
In Nottingham, rioters threw firebombs into a police station and set a school on fire and looting and violence was also reported again in Liverpool.
At least five other cities, including Gloucester and Leicester, also reported problems Tuesday night.
The wave of lawlessness began Saturday in the north London suburb of Tottenham when a peaceful protest against the fatal police shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan turned violent. London experienced three straight nights of violence, which spread to other parts of the nation.
“It is as much a moral problem as it is a political problem,” Cameron said outside 10 Downing St. Wednesday morning.
He said he wants to ensure the justice system is ready to handle the large number of people arrested.
About 1,200 people have been arrested since Saturday — an 11-year-old boy among them.
Rioters have been smashing windows and stealing running shoes, electronics and clothing. In one particularly shocking incident, a young man injured in the violence in London is helped up from the ground by a man who later robs him, along with others who pick items out of his backpack. See video of that incident here.
Many of the looters have managed to escape police and quickly regroup. Canada’s Research In Motion Ltd. isn’t commenting on British lawmakers’ request that BlackBerry Messaging, an instant and encrypted service, be suspended and chat logs handed over to police. Authorities claim the service is being used to organize riots.
