London's Burning: Rolling thread for the 2011 summer protests, riots and general unrest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y47G-Wa4qfs

so i might not leave the house

Can i have some kind of royalties for the title please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMa9dMGuX5k

Nice, "c'mon kids we're going to the riots"

Saw plenty of filming going on in E. London earlier. Hipster-cum-war-correspondents.

Hipster cum?

Fucking shitting myself right now. I don't see any reason why this shouldn't just keep going.

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I don't see any reason why this shouldn't just keep going.

― Matt DC, Monday, 8 August 2011 20:04 (17 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah the sense that the police have no real control over this is what makes it crazy.

Presumably there's a load of Carling Cup footie games in the capital tmrw. Should add to the fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOTyj501asI

http://birminghamriots2011.tumblr.com/

Croydon kicking off now :(

i get the feeling the police could sort this out but they've been ordered to hold back, presumably as not to cause a riot heh heh

my housemate just cycled back from work through old kent road and i asked him if it was boarded up like according to twitter and he was like no that is blatantly untrue it seems p fine there prolly a diff story in peckham/lewisham

oh shit they knocked over a bin [my internet sucks at the moment and i could only load 3 seconds of that clip]

Riot fuel!
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/08/article-2023554-0D5B05CC00000578-899_964x606.jpg

twitter really is the most useless shit in the world.

copy of 'one-dimensional man' in back pocket presumably xp

2012: Guardian reporter Paul Lewis tells the BBC the violence in Hackney is worse than in Enfield last night: "Rioters have control of an estate here. They have set up barricades along a number of roads."

Love the guy on the right here, hope he's still alive?
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/08/article-2023554-0D5B075100000578-116_470x585.jpg

Twitter was saying Elephant and Castle was closed earlier, when it wasn't

it is now saying that East Dulwich Road Tesco is getting some attempted looting now

lmfao

when do the housing benefit cuts kick in? 2012?

riots across london in 2012 will be kind of embarassing for the government during its olympic year

David Cameron is really dropping a bollock with this by the way. Second huge, stupid, unforced error of his premiership.

Housing benefit is a massive flashpoint - especially as more poor people are moved out of economically mixed areas, it'll just allow more areas like this to fester.

distrust anyone who uses the phrase "it's as simple as that" about this

Turns out my gf and little lad were in the cinema in Harrow watching Harry Potter when they turned the film off and announced they were evacuating the town centre. He was NOT HAPPY.

lol just saw a looter, he was about twelve years old

Harringay Green Lanes retail park boarded up, literally 2 mins from where I live aaaargh but I think it'll be a false alarm

Harrow? Enfield? Really?

Would just board everything up if I were a shopkeeper right now. Who's going to be out in this?

Stevie, croydon? Which bit?

Round West Croydon station according to the Beeb right now.

"They live in a world of playstations and rap music! They have been weened on this since they left their mothers breast!"

David Cameron is really dropping a bollock with this by the way.

still in tuscany with his private tennis coach, lest we forget

what does "dropping a bollock" actually mean?

I'm not hearing any news of random passers-by being attacked, thank fuck. Not much of a comfort to people whose houses are burning mind.

Ok got it, west croydon outside comic shop, lovely.

No trains or buses out of w croydon. Is one of the least lovely parts of London IMO, for those who've never been.

my housemate has his samurai sword out

just in case

Very very cynical thought: riots allowed to burn out of control in poor areas now to justify complete revocation of any and all civil liberties & rights over period of martial law for Olympics? Too paranoid and cynical?

yes

Simon Hughes is on TV finger-wagging people who "think this is a fun way to spend the summer holidays". FFS.

I'm not hearing any news of random passers-by being attacked, thank fuck.

nah i saw the first tweet about passers-by being mugged for bikes and cash in london fields a few hours ago, then a friend of a friend got mugged http://twitter.com/#!/fransingh

would kinda respect Cameron more if he stubbornly stuck to his guns and refused to end his holiday even if London ends up split into a few dozen anarchist rogue states.

My lols about braving the riots in going to Hackney tomorrow (to sign a lease) have now turned into proper concern. Lousy hubristic cynicism.

"They live in a world of playstations and rap music! They have been weened on this since they left their mothers breast!"

Was speaking to a senior cop about murders in London a few months ago and this was basically his exact line. He was saying "they get nothing but killing from these rap videos they watch on that channel, what's it called...?" I was pondering saying "what, like Channel U or something?" and thought better of prolonging the conversation, then he remembered and said "oh yes, MTV"

:o

Turns out my gf and little lad were in the cinema in Harrow watching Harry Potter when they turned the film off and announced they were evacuating the town centre. He was NOT HAPPY.

― JimD, Monday, 8 August 2011 20:20 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

If this happened just as Voldemort shot Harry then yeah, kids gonna be like OH SHIT

Metropolitan Police ‏@metpoliceuk 39m
Only 5 days left to get your votes in for the bravest act of police work last year. Vote now for your favourite http://tinyurl.com/poxeu6h

...

Carole Duggan punching a Mail reporter in the face though, GWAN

I don't like how the media are jonesing for something to 'happen' in Tottenham tonight, hats off to the family and the vox-poppers for not grabbing the bait. Would love to know what preceded the punch to the Daily Mail writer, though.

Alexandra Topping ‏@LexyTopping 9m
Tbh was more of a shove than a punch, did knock his glasses flying tho. She said it was for the way the paper had covered funeral #Duggan

vox-poppers

lol

what is funny about that and is that your entire contribution to the thread?

From twitter:

The #MarkDuggan family call a peaceful mass protest outside Tottenham Police Station 2pm Sat 11th Jan.

I'm thinking of going? It feels less useless than muttering darkly on the internet. Anyone else? Suzy? Lex?

I'd be very happy to go to Tottenham for that, but I need to find a way to make it work because I am on dog-watch this weekend. Dog has become very high-maintenance since suffering a bout of pancreatitis, so this may require heavy planning.

Where is tottenham

I should go to this if logistics permit

Think it's Spurs vs Palace on Saturday @ 3pm, not sure how that'll affect anyone traveling to that area. Matt? Police will be nice and busy anyway.

Haha as a Sarf Londoner, I had to look this up myself! It's the other end of the Victoria Line, or the overground that follows the A10 - I think that goes from Liverpool St?

x-post. Oh. Oh god. I'm slightly nervous of police action at peaceful protests but football crowds, oh god absolutely fucking no-go for me. Sorry!

Not sure where the police station is in relation to White Hart Lane tbh, might not have any effect at all.

i have saturday plans already, might see if i can shift them around but won't really know til the last min - will post if i do go

Tottenham High Road runs from the police station up to where WHL and the police station is directly on the route to the stadium from Seven Sisters tube, so it will definitely have an effect. The crowd will be on their way to the stadium so probably unconcerned by the protest, depends what's happening at 5 I suppose.

Palace aren't the best team to be going there given they're in the middle of Croydon.

Wouldn't be surprised to see the game called off actually.

Carole Duggan punching a Mail reporter in the face though, GWAN

Youtube? Hopefully? Please God?

what is funny about that and is that your entire contribution to the thread?

― lex pretend, Thursday, January 9, 2014 9:48 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just struck me as a funny phrase, i'm unfamiliar with it and assumed it was a suzyism.

but if we're pointlessly counting contributions, let's note i've made a couple more than you have.

hope all goes as well as it can at any actions saturday.

but if we're pointlessly counting contributions, let's note i've made a couple more than you have.

yes you win the prize well done america!

all right, good day. sorry i intruded.

Kettled by the lol police

I had no idea someone involved in any way with journalism or the media could be ignorant of permutations of the term 'vox populi' #shame

seems like some people weren't on the porn/leather thread this summer.

Way to go guys, keep the tepid lolz rolling on this thread about an unarmed black man being gunned down by police.

i think, with this, there's so much to say and yet it feels so disappointing and depressing that saying anything feels futile. i could talk about some of the idiot opinions I've heard in the last 24 hours; about how he deserved it, or how if you 'choose' to be in a gang then you know what the consequences are, or if you have a gun you deserve to be shot, or that the media are inciting people to riot, but what's the fucking point? Boris'll get his watercannon, the police'll get off scot-free, the 2011 riots will be remembered as an embarrassment and it'll just happen again and again and the more it happens the more police and governmental oppression will win-out. happy fucking 2014.

the cafc messageboard is my general bellwether for how yr average person thinks about a big news story; there's essentially almost full support for the verdict there, with the justification that duggan was carrying a gun and was a nasty gangsta sort who chose the way of violence and got what was coming

i perhaps don't have the heart to go on and say that all of the above, while also being vindictive and spiteful, is completely irrelevant to the fact of systemic flaw & delegation that resulted in the act of a trigger being pulled on a man who was at that moment unarmed, and the process of obfuscation which followed

obviously this case is not one-fiftieth as horrifying as the de menezes one, but it is horrifying nonetheless

ladies and gentlemen, richard littlejohn

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bdm5rArCIAAeXY8.jpg

what a cunt

Since this irredeemably racist shitbag lives in Florida, does he have someone sending him AVIs of Benefits Street or did a sub just put that reference in there?

I can't even believe... I know it's Littlejohn but crikey...

so much utter repulsiveness compacted into four short sentences - you've gotta say he's an amazingly efficient writer

this is one troll who def shdn't have his hackery dignified with responses

this, this, this

DNFTT hasn't really worked so well w/r/t his career in general, has it?

i'm not trying to be sanctimonious, if people address his "points" without giving him attention that's a good thing

ignoring him has no effect on his career because he is also speaking to/for his constituency of poisonous tiny minds, the jeers of actual human beings are just an ego massage for him, that's the thrill we shd try to deny him

Yeah, this is Louise Mensch syndrome - you can know and dismiss that a certain person is nothing but a purely attention-seeking troll, but the moment that you see their attitudes being taken up and parroted by others, it is rather important to address those *attitudes*, without feeding the source troll.

OTM. It's not like he's the only person talking like this.

Carole Duggan also punched/shoved a Daily Mail reporter (GWAN) on Wednesday because of the way that paper dealt with her nephew's funeral, so this is Dacre's revenge.

surprised Dacre cares that much about the grunts tbh

Littlejohn lives in a gated community near Orlando, where there are TONS of cheesy Brits with similar views, and you can buy the Mail in convenience stores all over the state, wherever there are tourists and second-homers.

the justification that duggan was carrying a gun and was a nasty gangsta sort

If I see that phrase "Live by the swrod, die by the sword" again I'll punch a Daily Mail reporter

More like "live within racism, die by racism" unfortunately.

The CPS has declined to prosecute an armed office in another case (in Manchester) because they apparently didn't think a jury would convict:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/16/greater-manchester-police-health-safety-unarmed-anthony-grainger

The background to that shooting is unsurprisingly murky as fuck http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315777/The-memory-stick-killing-When-police-lost-data-card-names-1-000-informants-questioned-father--cleared-Two-months-later-shot-dead.html

Ha, saw that earlier & thought of this thread. police being basically collectively prosecuted for killing someone under health&safety was so nakedly absurd w/ the jean charles de menezes case I am amazed they're doing it again

I think the difficulty in both cases was trying to find someone with enough individual responsibility to prosecute. That's not easy to do when you have a string of incompetent or dodgy decisions by a large number of people.

That's not easy to do not allowed when you have a string of incompetent or dodgy decisions by a large number of people police officers.

There's an element of that too, of course, but it's not much easier going after a rail company for corporate manslaughter after an avoidable crash, etc. Health and Safety regs are often used there too.