News Why Are Riots Escalating in London?

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Rioting in London has escalated over three consecutive nights, beginning after a peaceful protest against a police shooting turned violent. The unrest has spread widely, with significant destruction, including looting and arson, leading to a perception of the city resembling a war zone. Social media has played a crucial role in fueling the riots, attracting individuals from outside the initial protest area who are taking advantage of the chaos. The Metropolitan Police have struggled to maintain control due to being outnumbered, prompting discussions about the need for a more effective response. The situation reflects broader societal issues, including youth discontent and the influence of technology on mob behavior.
  • #51
JesseC said:
That fact would matter more if there was a level playing field to begin with. Unfortunately the UK is a country in which some are lucky enough to be born into tremendous wealth (say our Prime Minister or Mayor of London or Chancellor of the Exchequer) whilst others can work hard their entire lives and get nowhere.

But I suppose we diverge from the topic slightly...
That's the story (economic deprivation, or the perception thereof) behind the story.

There are perhaps those with legitimate greivances, and those who just choose to cause trouble. However, vandalism and violence are not the solutions to such a problem.
 
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  • #52
drankin said:
I had heard rumors but I couldn't find any articles. If you have a good link, please post.
Here are a couple from the first page.

Greg Bernhardt said:
It's becoming a widespread problem. Philly now has problems too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14466369

Greg Bernhardt said:
Just want to make a quick comment that in my city of Milwaukee, we've been having problems with youths organizing violent mobs via social media. At our 4th of July fireworks we had a mob destroy a 7-11 and then proceed to beat up 20-30 firework watchers. Also just last week we had a mob of 200 youths causing mayhem at our state fair which sent 30 to the hospital. It's a huge issue here. Social media is rearing it's ugly head.
 
  • #53
And so, the shooting of Mark Duggan leads to World War III.
 
  • #54
Evo said:
Here are a couple from the first page.

Interesting that it had to be an non-US article. I was googling the US news and didn't see anything. Must be overshadowed by the UK news.
 
  • #55
Astronuc said:
Certainly, it could! Remember Summer, 1968. Chicago, Nov. 1968...
Interesting that you mentioned that riot. There ware no observe only police lines back then. Mayor Daley's cops forcefully put down the riots in '68 Chicago. The youth rioters naively assumed the ethnic (poles, etc) police force would join in common cause with them, when they were really from two different cultures.

Grant Park 1968, where Obama gave his election night speech 40 years later.
Chicago-police-to-mark-1968-riots.jpg
 
  • #56
So tonight London seems safe (as you'd imagine with 16,000 police on the streets), and it's definitely important to have taken back control of the capital, but some of the smaller cities have been badly hit. The central shopping centre in Manchester has been looted and some shops burnt to the ground. Sigh.. I hope this ends soon, it's embarrassing and hugely destructive.
 
  • #57
mheslep said:
Interesting that you mentioned that riot.
Shame on Astro for going off topic and not reading the earlier posts. Tsk!

Back to social media's involvement in the riots.
 
  • #58
Evo said:
Shame on Astro for going off topic and not reading the earlier posts. Tsk!

Back to social media's involvement in the riots.
Wrong thread Evo. This is the Riots of London thread :frown:
 
  • #59
ryan_m_b said:
EDIT: This is the same reason why I think that self-driving cars will face a far harder introduction than people anticipate even if the technology exists. Never underestimate the human capability to misunderstand risk.

Obviously this is totally aside from the current thread, but it's an interesting point. I can easily imagine that if the death toll in America were to drop from tens of thousands per year due to car accidents to a few thousands or less due to the use of self-driving cars, if some of those were in self-driving cars, the headlines would be screaming "AUTOMATIC CARS KILL DRIVERS" and have nothing to say about the huge savings of lives.
 
  • #60
cristo said:
So tonight London seems safe (as you'd imagine with 16,000 police on the streets), and it's definitely important to have taken back control of the capital, but some of the smaller cities have been badly hit. The central shopping centre in Manchester has been looted and some shops burnt to the ground. Sigh.. I hope this ends soon, it's embarrassing and hugely destructive.
It's really terrible. How long can the police keep up these numbers?

Since people are missing posts, I'll repost this.

Evo said:
Look at the destruction caused by the mobs. Horrible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14461868
 
  • #61
Evo said:
It's really terrible. How long can the police keep up these numbers?

Since people are missing posts, I'll repost this.

Wow that's crazy. The Sony picture looks like it's photoshopped, unbelievable. Savages on the loose, what can we say
 
  • #62
Evo said:
Shame on Astro for going off topic and not reading the earlier posts. Tsk!
:!) I'm just a troublemaker. :biggrin:
 
  • #63
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/comment/talking-politics/no-politics-today-084521728.html

The major events which hit us now are treated as automatic verifications of each individual's personal politics. It happened most recently with the massacre in Norway. Just this evening mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone made points which amounted to party political posturing. Ukip leader Nigel Farage and the BNP blamed multiculturalism. More than one right-wing columnist blamed family breakdown. An army of left-wingers blamed deprivation. Many of them also joined the right in calling for the army to come out on the streets.
...
The first thing we have to do is separate the valid ideas from the invalid ones. Blaming this on multiculturalism, for instance, is laughable and demonstrably false, as any Turkish man defending his shop with a stick tonight can tell you.
...
We can't talk about why this happened without talking about family breakdown, lack of respect for others and lack of responsibility.
...
But we will also define ourselves by how we respond to this.
...
No-one with a career behaves this way. No-one who is invested in society would act like this. Only people with nothing to lose would do this.

There is nothing I can add to this insightful telling commentary. Easily the best I have seen.
 
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  • #64
mheslep said:
Wrong thread Evo. This is the Riots of London thread :frown:
Yes, the riots in London were caused/worsened by social media. Read the thread! <fish slaps mheslep>

Evo said:
We discussed this yesterday in chat.

http://news.yahoo.com/london-rioters-battle-police-shooting-protest-054921704.html

It seems the riot was fueled by social media, people that had no interest in what happened came in from other areas. Looks like a new trend in mobs and riots caused or worsened by social media.
 
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  • #65
Evo said:
Yes, the riots in London were caused/worsened by social media. Read the thread! <fish slaps mheslep>


I disagree that social media, a communication medium, is responsible for these riots. Just because people can communicate so easily is not the cause of this behaviour.

This quote that Ken Natton posted from a commentary nails it IMO: "No-one with a career behaves this way. No-one who is invested in society would act like this. Only people with nothing to lose would do this."
 
  • #66
drankin said:
I disagree that social media, a communication medium, is responsible for these riots. Just because people can communicate so easily is not the cause of this behaviour.
It's how the mobs were gathered and directed. Social media is the tool, people are the catalyst.
 
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  • #67
Social media and more traditional media played a big role in the spread of unrest around Arab nations earlier this year. The social issues that underpinned that unrest were completely different to the opportunistic mayhem engulfing England at the moment. Social media is just an efficient method of communication. What matters is the content and the motivation behind the messages.
 
  • #68
I had to get out of my area for a bit because I needed to buy groceries. I come out of the grocery store and after 2 minutes a guy tries to mug me in plain sight (grabs at my shirt and pushes me backwards). He says he wants my shoes, then his 'friend' tells him to leave me alone because they won't fit.

Also heard of a few more incidents where thugs are asking random people to give them their clothes. I feel for those people, as it must be absolutely humiliating... I don't even want to go outside anymore. Online shopping it is.
 
  • #69
FeDeX_LaTeX said:
I had to get out of my area for a bit because I needed to buy groceries. I come out of the grocery store and after 2 minutes a guy tries to mug me in plain sight (grabs at my shirt and pushes me backwards). He says he wants my shoes, then his 'friend' tells him to leave me alone because they won't fit.

Also heard of a few more incidents where thugs are asking random people to give them their clothes. I feel for those people, as it must be absolutely humiliating... I don't even want to go outside anymore. Online shopping it is.

I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with that minding your own business in public. It really angers me. Someone comes up to me and tells me they want my shoes, they are going to get one of them in their face while it's still on my foot.

If you have some big friends, ask them to hang out with you when you are out and about until this blows over. Avoid the streets alone.
 
  • #70
drankin said:
"No-one with a career behaves this way. No-one who is invested in society would act like this. Only people with nothing to lose would do this."

See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/06/17/calgary-vancouver-riot-athlete.html" from the recent Vancouver riots.

I imagine as people are identified in the London riots, we'll see that some of them are successful and were caught up in the mob-mentality.
 
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  • #71
NeoDevin said:
See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/06/17/calgary-vancouver-riot-athlete.html" from the recent Vancouver riots.

I imagine as people are identified in the London riots, we'll see that some of them are successful and were caught up in the mob-mentality.

That kid should get jail time and his scholarship revoked IMO. Social media is helping to identify these vandals.
 
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  • #72
drankin said:
That kid should get jail time and his scholarship revoked IMO. Social media is helping to identify these vandals.

Agreed on the jail time, not so sure about the scholarship.

I only posted it here to show that even successful people will behave in this way.
 
  • #73
NeoDevin said:
Agreed on the jail time, not so sure about the scholarship.

I only posted it here to show that even successful people will behave in this way.

No question about it. Successful people are involved in criminal activity all the time. Their "successfulness" should not make their punishment any less IMO. I don't subsribe to "the riot made me do it" excuse.
 
  • #74
Tosh5457 said:
These events don't reflect the mentality of British youth. The participants come from poor neighborhoods and are mostly black, which also has an influence.

Almost overkill, since it is worldwide known that British skinheads and football hooligans only drink tea and play cricket, all day long ...

geez
 
  • #75
NeoDevin said:
I only posted it here to show that even successful people will behave in this way.


I hear the point you are making NeoDevin, but again I would suggest that the circumstances are different. The Vancouver riot was borne of sporting defeat, and I suspect, at least partly fuelled by alcohol. Alcohol and drugs might have played a role in the riots in England but, when it all started, a few nights ago, some genuine – if unjustified and misguided – anger at the death of Mark Duggan lay at its root. What has happened since then, though, has nothing whatever to do with the death of Mark Duggan. Who knows, perhaps some people with more to lose have involved themselves in all that has followed, but I don’t think they are representative of the demographic involved. And further, such people are generally band-wagon jumpers. Someone else has to start the trouble and it has to take hold to a significant degree before such types find the courage to join in.
 
  • #76

Primitively disturbing.
 
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  • #77
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/08/london-riots-blackberry-messenger-looting"
The maker of the BlackBerry, Research in Motion, said on Monday night that it would co-operate with a police investigation into claims that its popular BlackBerry Messenger service played a key role in organising the London riots.

Scotland Yard vowed to track down and arrest protesters who posted "really inflammatory, inaccurate" messages on the service, and the social networking websites Twitter and Facebook.

Patrick Spence, the managing director regional marketing at Research In Motion (RIM), confirmed that the BlackBerry manufacturer had contacted police to assist with the investigation.

Let's hope RIM carries through and makes good on their promise. Isn't London one of the most heavily video monitored places anywhere in the world as well ? If so, that can't hurt in tracking down the perpetraitors.

Rhody...
 
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  • #78
While there are some youth mobs forming to rob certain people and businesses, have we really seen any riots here in the U.S. yet? I mean I haven't seen anything here thus far that matches what's going on in the UK right now.

I don't know if I buy the poverty/unemployment/economic hardship argument, I mean we have far fewer social entitlements here in the U.S. in comparison to what they have in the UK, but we haven't seen riots like this. I wonder if any of these riots also have to do with a nanny state being too extensive...? Like turning too much of the society into adult adolescents...? Not trying to go off-topic, just wondering about the causes of all this.
 
  • #79
Willowz said:

Primitively disturbing.


How about those two women who were interviewed saying about how it's all the fault of "the rich" and "people with businesses." Since when are all people with businesses rich (and that's assuming even the truly rich are to blame in such an example)? Destroying all the businesses in a community, those are not rich people they're attacking.
 
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  • #80
CAC1001 said:
While there are some youth mobs forming to rob certain people and businesses, have we really seen any riots here in the U.S. yet? I mean I haven't seen anything here thus far that matches what's going on in the UK right now.

I don't know if I buy the poverty/unemployment/economic hardship argument, I mean we have far fewer social entitlements here in the U.S. in comparison to what they have in the UK, but we haven't seen riots like this. I wonder if any of these riots also have to do with a nanny state being too extensive...? Like turning too much of the society into adult adolescents...? Not trying to go off-topic, just wondering about the causes of all this.
Have you read the fist page of this thread and the linked articles?
 
  • #81
Evo said:
Have you read the fist page of this thread and the linked articles?

Yes...:confused:
 
  • #82
CAC1001 said:
Yes...:confused:
Here you go.
Greg Bernhardt said:
It's becoming a widespread problem. Philly now has problems too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14466369

Evo said:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/08/09/for_flash_mobsters_crowd_size_a_tempting_cover/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
 
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  • #83
Evo said:
Here you go.

Yes I read those, but that was part of what I was writing about, we are seeing flash mobs occurring here in the U.S. in certain areas, but I mean we aren't seeing Philadelphia or Cleveland lit up on fire with police cars being torched, buildings set on fire, masses of small businesses destroyed, and so forth. No major U.S. cities with 14,000 police on the streets. So I mean I wouldn't say the rioting as we've seen in the UK and has come to the U.S. yet.
 
  • #84
CAC1001 said:
Yes I read those, but that was part of what I was writing about, we are seeing flash mobs occurring here in the U.S. in certain areas, but I mean we aren't seeing Philadelphia or Cleveland lit up on fire with police cars being torched, buildings set on fire, masses of small businesses destroyed, and so forth. No major U.S. cities with 14,000 police on the streets. So I mean I wouldn't say the rioting as we've seen in the UK and has come to the U.S. yet.
And chicago.

No, our police had inercepted a number of mob tweets and stopped them.

So maybe we are a bit more savvy, or lucky.
 
  • #87
Seems to me that when some in the political leadership sowed the unrest over the University subsidies some months ago, i.e. when they tacitly or even actively encouraged those riots, so now have they reaped with this common criminal behavior.
 
  • #88
jtbell said:
A surprising number of the rioters appearing in court have turned out not to be the "unemployed yobs" that people have been focusing on:

Shock over 'respectable' lives behind masks of UK rioters (cnn.com)

If you're interested in real data see this at the guardian.

I didn't do an accurate count, but looking at the spreadsheet I estimate at about 75% of those taken before court were unemployed or have no stated occupation. I am of course assuming that the 124 or so data points are a reliable measure of the whole.

So while its interesting to note that a significant minority of people were employed, preliminary data indicate that the majority don't seem to be. Hardly surprising...
 
  • #89
Why is not completely surprising that even a 1/4 of those arrested in mob violence for looting and/or arson were employed or even well off? Maybe that watched Clockwork Orange to many times?
 
  • #90
mheslep said:
Why is not completely surprising that even a 1/4 of those arrested in mob violence for looting and/or arson were employed or even well off? Maybe that watched Clockwork Orange to many times?

Maybe they did, maybe they got caught up in the excitement... not like having a job means you're not going to be violent and disorderly. I re-read the list... looks like half of those listed as employed are actually students, the rest mostly in low paid jobs like: lifeguard, retail assistant, fork lift truck driver etc. etc.

The occasional mid-pay job like electrician, clerk, estate agent... that is somewhat surprising I agree.

Though hardly occupations to put you in Forbes 500.

Statistics dictates that in a crowd of thousands, you're definitely going to find some odd-balls that don't fit... I'm sure the Sun and other tabloids love to make a bit deal out of it, but its hardly representative.
 
  • #91
It's 22:30 and my dad just came home from work and he said there was a Caucasian teenager wearing a hoodie just sitting outside on our doorstep, saying he was "waiting for somebody". My dad told him that if he didn't go away he'd call the police, and he did go away, but I still think there's a chance he'll come back in the middle of the night and try to break a window or something. In the hallway there's a bike and a motorbike and the roof is made of lead which people have tried to steal by breaking bits of it off during the night-time. It's scary to think that this person is about my age and was sitting literally 5 metres away from me outside my window, possibly looking at me, and I didn't notice.

Just had a quick check now and he isn't there but it's only been about 45 minutes so he could be back at any time. I've heard reports on the internet of innocent people's homes being broken into at night and having their stuff looted. Now it's getting really close to home and I'm admittedly scared.

Hoping this will be over soon... I'm sleeping with a baseball bat beside my bed tonight.

Also, I heard that one of the rioters is an undergraduate at the university of Exeter, who got 9A*s and 4As at GCSE and has 4 A-levels all at grade A, and another is the daughter of a millionaire? Weird...

EDIT: 23:13, just heard distant sawing outside my window. Manual saw, sounded like sawing through metal. Called my dad to see if he could see anything or if there was any trouble, couldn't see anything/the sawing stopped. Anybody sawing around my area at this time or night can't be good. What worries me is that it was quiet enough for me to be able to sleep through it...
 
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  • #92
Amazon has removed several police-style telescopic truncheons from sale on its site as soaring sales of truncheons, baseball bats and other items that could be used as weapons sparked fears of vigilantism in the wake of widespread rioting.

Sales of one type of aluminium truncheon rose 50,000% within 24 hours, entering the top-10 bestselling items in the sports category. Before they were de-listed, two different "police-style" truncheons had seen sales increase more than 400-fold overnight, though from a low base.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-amazon-withdraws-truncheons
 
  • #94
Dotini said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...s-Lidl-water-thief-jailed-for-six-months.html

The mournful story of an electrical engineering student, no previous record, sentenced to 6 months in prison for nicking some water bottles.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
How can the UK pull these people in and hand out instant jail sentences? WTH? I've been reading about this kangaroo court the last 2 days and I am astonished.
 
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  • #95
Evo said:
How can the UK pull these people in and hand out instant jail sentences? WTH?

I believe there are too many to do it any other way and they are applying zero-tolerance.
 
  • #96
I like Serena said:
I believe there are too many to do it any other way and they are applying zero-tolerance.
I don't condone looting, the guy obviously failed to use common sense, but do the people in the UK have no right to a "fair" trial?

Shoplifting the water from an open store would have resulted in a warning. I'm all for nailing numbskulls, but this is even more than I can approve of.
 
  • #97
Evo said:
I don't condone looting, the guy obviously failed to use common sense, but do the people in the UK have no right to a "fair" trial?

Maybe later, when the immediate crisis has been dealt with, and an example has been set.
 
  • #98
Evo said:
I've been reading about this kangaroo court
Evo said:
do the people in the UK have no right to a "fair" trial?
Eh? Did I miss something?
 
  • #99
Hurkyl said:
Eh? Did I miss something?
Yeah, like how many hours between arrest and sentenced to 6 months in jail for a first offense of shoplifting. If all they have on the guy is a case of water, nothing that ties him to the riots or the damage or the violence, I think allowing him out on bail would have been appropriate.
 
  • #100
Evo said:
Shoplifting the water from an open store would have resulted in a warning. I'm all for nailing numbskulls, but this is even more than I can approve of.
Evo said:
Yeah, like how many hours between arrest and sentenced to 6 months in jail for a first offense of shoplifting.

It's not for shoplifting, it's for "looting".
Quite a different behaviour than the old lady who effectively countered rioting and looting.
We need more people like her who care.
Six months seems excessive though.
 

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