But a a young man was murdered by a band of police. He was shot over 40 times for no reason.
Worse, there was plenty of witnesses, and no justice, the witnesses were ignored, and even threatened to keep quite.
So yeah, the community decides to riot over this, their destroying nothing owned outside of their community.
This riot is just against the brutality and criminal behavior performed by the police there.

So the proper way to protest the hurting of innocent people is to... hurt other innocent people? Okay yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

no-one innocent is being hurt.
in fact, no one has even died from the riots, except rioters.
so you probably no nothing about whats going on.
get informed, read newspapers, listen to news station.

:/ Well, it really does "hurt" people who aren't directly involved to have their houses and cars set on fire and even their windows simply broken-- think of how much it would cost if some people completely destroyed your property out of the sheer need to lash out.

We had this controversy in New York, twice: the Sean Bell shooting and the Amadou Diallo shooting. Nobody here caused massive destructive riots, just protests. Civil disobedience? Yes. Riots? No.

So, yes, fuck the rioters.

This.
Financial losses are still a form of 'hurt'. Property loss = financial and investment loss which can upset all kinds of things in one's life.
To destroy a private citizen's property over a social/government/law enforcement issue is ludicrous and crass and defeats the purpose.

Yeah because the sixty year old man with life threatening head injuries totally wasn't innocent was he?

But the person shot 40+ times by police officers was less than 30 years old. Heck, he was 23 if I remember, and unarmed.
That is the person who was murdered. And the police was did this act began roaming his community threatening the locals.
Why? They were all witnesses. And the witnesses reported the 'murder' and were abused for it. And these witnesses are the rioters.
Rioting is wrong, they should be protesting, I understand. They took a bad choice in defying authority in this way.
What I can't understand is why no one knows what happenned anymore. Especially since you know nothing at all about this.

He was shot ONCE and had a gun. Do your bloody RESEARCH before spreading rumours for fucks sakes.

There has been no threatening by the police, in fact it was a special squad that tried to arrest him because they knew he'd be armed and the rioters are NOT those who peacefully asked for answers.

You know nothing about it yourself, you're repeating debunked rumours and out and out lies spread to justify the riots.

Care to cite your sources there, or is pushing a political agenda with falsified moral repugnance and outrage more your style?

If that the case, an enquiry would have been the way to go about it. Not starting fires, LOOTING -seriously, looting doesn't help their case AT ALL- and generally causing fear and panic.

A peaceful protest I have no qualms with. This is unecessary and completely mindless.

I'm sorry one young man died, but dozens of people have now lost their homes and everything they owned thanks to idiots jumping on a bandwagon.

From what I know, the looters were not part of the initial peaceful protest, but were infact opportunists

I have family who live near london and if anything happens to them especially my 10 year old & 7 year old lil cousins I hope this asswipes get the punishment they deserve!

So you want the police in the area to murder people and threaten witnesses with death?
You want police to kill your cousins? The rioters sure won't kill or hurt your cousins.
After all, they only rioted in their community. No where else.

You sir, are ignorant.

The rioters? They're not rioting because a guy who waved a gun at the cops was shot, they're rioting because of loot, because of greed and they have hurt innocent people already. Thugs are not something you should defend.

Shit in your backyard still stinks.

PS: If you still say murdering people and tormenting witnesses is not a bad thing, then your point is invalid.

Iam not saying thse people are murderers as you prob know fire is also a killer, for you to even say police to kill my cousins or even think that your worse that the rioters causing this destruction.

You don't know where my family lives so how the hell can you say to me these people are just destroying their local places, are you teling me it's wrong to worry for my family!

I just think you might not know what is going on, or where it is going on.
It is not wrong to worry for your family.
But its wrong to point blame at people who are currently sufferring.

who is suffering that iam pointing the blame at the rioters are certainly not suffering as far as ive seen from things Ive seen on the news

Yes. The people breaking into and looting shops, setting fire to places that lead to the loss of homes and also cars and bins are totally suffering. That's what you do when you suffer. You go steal shit and burn someone's house down.

I know that's my preferred method of grief counseling. Bad day at the office? Fuck, there's no way in hell I'll get over it until I've incited a public uprising and kicked someone's poodle into a burning salon.

There exist other ways of showing resent and anger at a government besides rioting and looting and setting things on fire.

Looting from homes and business's of CIVILIAN people is wrong of the rioters. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I suppose you are all right in some way, still, there are a bunch of murderers who are cops who are getting away with bad things.
If people forget what started these riots, than all this loss will be for nothing in the end.
There should have been people doing something other than a riot, yes, but this is what happenned.
After all, you can't turn to the police if they are the very criminals you are living in fear of and getting tormented by.
People obviously turned their anger in the wrong place. They should have targeted the criminals that caused everything.
But turning ones anger to the rioters only means anger goes in a place that will allow the murders before hand to be forgotten, or worse. It is merely a second turning of anger in the wrong direction.

Well I sure hope all people that have commited wrongs are punished, but that doesn't always happens. Sometimes bad people get away with things cause only a few bad people are hated, and desired caught.
Even in my area the police have been known to undertake criminal activities. However most people don't complain cause no-one gets hurt or killed. It's mostly police performed theft in various forms and drug related stuff.
What's happenning in the UK is different. There are people getting hurt every which way, but it all originates from the actions of specific people harming specific people. I just hope there isn't some means of making a coverup or anything.

Congratulations kid, welcome to real fucking life. We hope you enjoy your stay, for however long you choose to remain with us.

Rioting is not the answer to police brutality and corruption. Peaceful protest can accomplish quite a bit, the police ultimately answer to the government, and if you get off your ass and vote, the government ultimately answers to the populace.

Unless I am completely misunderstanding how the UK government works.

What's going there is absolute bs, it has absolutely no real purpose other than sincere domestic terrorism, and opportunism perpetrated by jaded folks who spent too long under the illusion of the idea of Utopia instead of facing reality. They have foregone any sense of rationalism and decided to vent blind and undirected rage over their own disappointing life. They lack the skill or motivation to reach to better themselves not to mention the average public is largely cock-blocked by corporations. So these folks are taking their blind anger out in an absolutely non-constructive way and entirely undermining any effort for 'progress'. The rioters (which differ greatly from a protestor and the two should never be crossed) deserve absolute discipline and punishment for failing to grasp the fact that life is not fair and reacting like a bunch of 3 year olds- because the riots at the core have very little to do with Duggan.

The vandals and terrorists are impacting more than faceless business. They are impacting private citizens in negative ways. Private citizens own those stores, cars, homes. Private citizens were employed at those shops. Private citizens are required to vacate their homes due to the MINDLESS violence. Private citizens are missing work for those selfish jerks. Private citizens are losing out because of those jerks. If the private citizen would stand up with law enforcement and say 'enough' it just might end sooner.

The idea of people who stand up for the rioters must have absolutely no grasp on reality or embody zero compassion.

The idea that Duggan was a unique instance is absolutely false. It's not unique, nor is it particularly special*. The idea that these riots have 100% to do with his death is false and ignorant. There are economic and social impetus behind them and Duggan was only the spark on a smoldering fuse. However I maintain that there are far more constructive methods to address social and economic issues. That is of course unless you're in the US, where protests would equal our totalitarian government showing it's true colors again and putting the military on it's own citizens. I couldn't tell you if the UK would be likely to do the same.


/end rant



*Any loss of human life for a great number of reasons is terrible. An investigation to any death whether it be police or criminal purported is required. But it's not unique and the UK isn't in any worse position than the rest of the world simply because it happened. London'ers- you're not special snowflakes. Get over it.

WOW, I just saw pictures (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/20.....don_riots.html) and yeah, what a bunch of asshats. Not only are they causing an incredible amount of harm, terror, and destruction to those around them.

The rioters are putting the spotlight on themselves, not what they are supposedly "Standing up for". For shame :/

Whoops:

*<i>Not only are they causing an incredible amount of harm, terror, and destruction to those around them</i>, but they aren't accomplishing anything productive.

Kind of ridiculous how a lot of citizens just swallow outrageous "reforms" whose sole purpose is to screw them over. But as soon as there is serious police violence along with a hush-hush information policy about the exact circumstances of the incident, all that pent up rage gets unleashed.

As you state yourself, as soon as the vandalism and violence start, protests lose most of their public support regardless of what they were about. This little fact on public opinion makes it quite attractive for the establishment to use agents provocateurs to infiltrate such protests. The agents' job is to either incite the mob to commit violence and vandalism and/or to do it all by themselves. And then have the sensationalist media ready to spread the word, that those protesters with noble goals turned out to be just petty vandals. This diminishes public support and now you just wait for the first authentic dumb tit who also wants to protest, but now believes, that you need violence and vandalism for a "successful protest," and then we have truly authentic violence and vandalism. This is much easier to accomplish with decentralised protests anyone can start anywhere, than with long term protests which have been organised against a specific project and thus usually have a collective of experienced protesters in which said dumb tits can be integrated and persuaded, that violence and vandalism are not going to help their cause.
Of course, this described possibility of staged vandalism does not rule out the existence of authentic opportunist looters and brutes, but since it is now debated whether to send in the army to reestablish "order," I'm not so sure about giving all "credit" for the riots to opportunist looters and brutes.

That's venturing a little too far into tinfoil hat territory, don't you think? What's more likely - a massed government conspiracy to discredit a peaceful weekend protest with scores of field agents trained to incite rioting...or a bunch of bored, teenage assholes taking advantage of a situation to cause some aimless mayhem?

Or are we not lending Occam's Razor any credence these days?

True, it is going a tad too far into tinfoil hat territory, but I have seen this practice as part of the public defamation campaign against the G8 protests in Germany 2007 whose sad climax were the riots of Rostock. In Rostock both agents provocateurs and the conflict-escalating measures of the riot police did a splendid job and as a result the mainstream media discovered the black bloc and proclaimed them and their supposed violence as "the average protester," and as a menace feared by the police, "justifying" stronger riot police presence wherever the black bloc would show up. At the time I was involved with education protests and in the aftermath of Rostock's riots a lot of the pupils who marched with us students for the first time dressed up as black bloc for this reason because they only saw the black bloc in the news coverage and no "normal" persons.
You don't even need a massed government conspiracy to achieve such an effect, you just have to make sure, that your tiny task force with its conflict-escalating covert actions will tend to the prejudice and resentments of the average apolitical bloke whose primary source of news is the yellow press. And all the public hatemongering will be done for you because the editors of such "newspapers" are looking for every good excuse to "proove" the threat of Leftists to "our values."
Rostock's riots nonetheless made the organised protest culture in Germany aware of the existence of agents provocateurs and what had worked in Rostock didn't work anymore at the perimeter fence of the Heiligendamm summit a few days later, when the rioting agent provocateurs were quickly apprehended by the small group of protesters there. And thanks to the growing practice of sousveillance, the identified agents provocateurs in Germany are usually found out to be members of the BFE( "police unit for arresting and securing evidence " ) as it was once again demonstrated during the S21 protests on September 30th 2010 in Stuttgart and later in June 2011 during the sit-in at the construction site.
The incident of September 30th is also of significance because among the police experts several were baffled as to why their proven and well-recognised deescalation police tactic "Stuttgarter Linie" was not used at all.

Of course I know, that most of the rioters are bored, desperate, left-behind, no-future, piss-poor teenage assholes who among other things were too stupid to do us all a favour and wreck the shitload of surveillance cameras in London. My point is, that they got nudged into the "proper direction" of looting and burning during the initial protest and that the spreading of the riots is taking the path of a meme of the new archetype of looting rioter who is feared and loathed by all the people who before just loathed and looked down on these kids.

Mob logic is often not logical at all :V

It is a difficult situation, really. I completely understand with the anger and frustration of a lot of people which lead to the original riots in and around the area where that guy was shot by the police. To be honest, the rioting is an effective way of showing how serious people are taking the whole thing which should hopefully prompt some changes for the better in the way that the powers that be handle any future situations. However that the rioting turned into looting and the active disregard for innocents, spreading to other areas? It has long since lost any meaning and now is just being used as an excuse for criminality. Sickening, really, the original signal has been lost in the noise.

Watching this from a distance is pretty appalling, if only because I didn't think this sort of mass riot was capable of taking place in London, of all places.

Since the first day this took place it seems that neither the police shooting nor the reduction in youth benefits were ever an actual part of the narrative behind the mob's rampage; this was a chance to pillage and burn, nothing further.

I hate to point this fact out, but witnessing what's gone on and listening to some of the testimonies of affected residents unable to defend themselves without police assistance has made me grateful I'm allowed to carry sidearms of my own. I'd hate for something like this to happen locally without a gun to protect myself, my friends and my property. :/

I agree. From the start they weren't riots, just organised criminals. If they were rioting they'd be targeting government buildings and police stations, not shops and cars. Fuck, in London they raided a charity shop, which is just the lowest you can go, really.

I don't mind you pointing it out. I feel so sorry for the people unable to defend themselves against these brainless hooligans.

You better not listen to this radio broadcast then interviewing some of the people involved. It will only make your blood boil. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/toda.....00/9560646.stm

Btw 4 people dead from the riots now. 3 were run over trying to protect their property (I originally heard this was outside a mosque) and the other was found shot dead in his car (separate from the original incident) over the last 48 hours.

These riots don't have anything to do with what originally happened. It's a bunch of kids doing what ''everyone else is doing.'' and there's not enough police to stop them. Although hopefully this will change. If people still are preaching the whole ''they had this coming - it was bound to happen'' bullshit I'd like to know what burning down a 140 year old family run carpet shop has to do with racism and social equality in the nation.

I used to live in the Uk, 30min from London so i have friends who work and live there and have had their work life affected, including people stealing laptops in the chaos and burning cars in their neighborhood. Not to mention that this is nor London anymore but half the cities in England itself.

I'm still just amazed that most of these rioters are seemingly kids from as young as 13 as well.

I believe these Chavs had as much to do with the initial protest as the anarchists at the student protests earlier this year.

What I am saying is that these Looters and Vandals are just opportunistic scum who use big followings (such as protests, football games, etc.) to satisfy their selfish need for destruction and taking advantage of good people.

They are not unfortunate frustrated youths fighting a cause...theyre just short-sighted selfish Chavs

on a lighter note, did you hear about the Vigilantes in Eltham?

SEROIUSLY.

the lives of four innocent people do not make up for the one who was shot by police.
there is no kind of justice in this, no kind of retribution- the only people who are suffering are innocent people in London who have to contend with living in fear for their lives and their livelihoods.

attacking the police will not change the fact that some guy was shot.
attacking average citizens will not change the fact that some guy was shot.
looting businesses will not change the fact that some guy was shot.
vandalizing the city will not change the fact that some guy was shot.

it's just senseless, senseless violence.