Tottenham riots

[Ecfc_4_Life]

Get yourself up there and make some citizen's arrests.

Haha no thanks. It's like planet of the apes in London at the moment.

( No racism intended. )

 

[mfcrocker]

Ah Exeweb, never change.

Two points to make - first off, there's absolutely no evidence that the police were shot at by the criminal in the cab. The policeman who was shot at was shot at with a police-issue round. There's absolutely no way this guy should've been killed.

Second off a couple of questions:

1) Do you guys believe that every single person looting was a yob/anarchist/enter trouble-making group here? (Hint: this is rhetorical, the answer is no)
2) Why do you think "ordinary" people went as far as rioting and looting?

People are feeling enormous pressure from the government's austerity measures and are getting increasingly desperate, leading to scenes like this. Hell, the Enfield riots were largely down to the recent closure of 2/3rds of the youth centres there, and there's video interviews confirming as such. Sure, there were a number of criminal types and opportunists in the crowd and there always will be, but I think you'll find that not everybody can be tarred with that brush.

 

[Alistair20000]

Ah Exeweb, never change.

Two points to make - first off, there's absolutely no evidence that the police were shot at by the criminal in the cab. The policeman who was shot at was shot at with a police-issue round. There's absolutely no way this guy should've been killed.

Second off a couple of questions:

1) Do you guys believe that every single person looting was a yob/anarchist/enter trouble-making group here? (Hint: this is rhetorical, the answer is no)
2) Why do you think "ordinary" people went as far as rioting and looting?

People are feeling enormous pressure from the government's austerity measures and are getting increasingly desperate, leading to scenes like this. Hell, the Enfield riots were largely down to the recent closure of 2/3rds of the youth centres there, and there's video interviews confirming as such. Sure, there were a number of criminal types and opportunists in the crowd and there always will be, but I think you'll find that not everybody can be tarred with that brush.

Serious question BFS. What is your considered view of the split between:

1) Genuine peaceful protesters and

2) Others including low life criminal scum ?

Please feel free to sub-categorise 2).

 

[mfcrocker]

Serious question BFS. What is your considered view of the split between:

1) Genuine peaceful protesters and

2) Others including low life criminal scum ?

Please feel free to sub-categorise 2).

It doesn't actually matter - if the split was 99:1 scum:not scum we should still be asking why that 1 has been driven to riot. Rioting is not something most people do lightly.

EDIT: Having read your post again the question makes no sense either - no-one who is rioting is a "peaceful protester". A violent protester is not necessarily scum, remember.

 

[Jason H]

One question - if the demonstration was supposed to be peaceful, how did a load of people come to be carrying petrol bombs?

 

[BigBanker]

A violent protester is not necessarily scum, remember.

That depends entirely on your definition of 'scum'.

 

[Alistair20000]

It doesn't actually matter - if the split was 99:1 scum:not scum we should still be asking why that 1 has been driven to riot. Rioting is not something most people do lightly.

EDIT: Having read your post again the question makes no sense either - no-one who is rioting is a "peaceful protester". A violent protester is not necessarily scum, remember.

Rioting is not something reasonable people do at all; let alone lightly. Any democratic and tolerant society can and should accept peaceful protest. Violent rioting is just wrong.

Anyone who has been a violent protester in London over the weekend is scum in my view. I'll accept that violent protest might be justifiable in other situations e.g. police states.

 

[Mr Jinx]

I live in Enfield and heard the police sirens last night which seemed to go on forever. Baffled as to why it happened in Enfield. Tottenham I can understand, it's like the frontline down there, but Enfield centre is actually a fairly nice area. Wonder if it'll spread even further afield tonight?

 

[StroudGrecian]

One question - if the demonstration was supposed to be peaceful, how did a load of people come to be carrying petrol bombs?

As a vague guess I would suggest this might have something to do with the police shooting someone dead a couple of days earlier, and a general belief that you cannot protest peacefully in London without the Met wading in. Ask Ian Tomlinson.

 

[Jason H]

As a vague guess I would suggest this might have something to do with the police shooting someone dead a couple of days earlier, and a general belief that you cannot protest peacefully in London without the Met wading in. Ask Ian Tomlinson.

If he wasn't a ****** up alky he might have realised he was walking into a police cordon. Just saying, like.

The demonstration was supposed to be peaceful. So why the petrol bombs? There'd be a lot more credence to this "The Police are to blame blah blah blah" if it was an Amritsar-like massacre rather than petrol bombs flying around all over the shop and everywhere being looted.

Why was the chap who was shot dead armed in the first place?