Rioters throwing gasoline bombs battled police in north London overnight, setting patrol cars, buildings and a double-decker bus on fire in some of the worst disorder seen in the British capital in recent years.
About 200 people rained missiles and bottles on riot officers near Tottenham police station after a protest at the fatal shooting of a man by armed officers last week turned violent.
Mounted police and riot officers on foot in turn charged the crowd to push them back.
Twenty-six officers were injured, one with head injuries, as rioters smashed windows and looted buildings including banks, shops and a supermarket and torched three police cars in the main road near the local police station.
The trouble broke out on Saturday night following a peaceful demonstration over the shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, who was killed after an exchange of gunfire with police on Thursday.
Duggan had been in a taxi when it was stopped by armed officers as part of a pre-planned operation. One policeman escaped unhurt after a bullet struck his radio. Duggan’s death is being investigated by the independent police watchdog.
Although there have been riots in other European countries linked to austerity measures to tackle large national debts, London police and local community leaders said anger at Duggan’s shooting was the cause of the riot.
Tottenham has a large number of ethnic minorities and includes areas with the highest unemployment rates in London. It also has a history of racial tension with local young people, especially blacks, resenting police behavior including the use of stop and search powers.
The disorder was very close to where one of Britain’s most notorious race riots occurred just over 25 years ago.
In 1985, police officer Keith Blakelock was hacked to death on the deprived Broadwater Farm housing estate during rioting in which around 500 mainly black youths rampaged through the streets, assaulting police, looting and setting fires.
Classford Stirling, a youth worker from Broadwater Farm, said there had been growing anger recently over stop and search practices by police.
“It wasn’t just black kids. It was the youth in general who are frustrated at the way the police are treating them,” he told BBC TV. “Everybody’s now thinking of the way Mr Duggan was shot and they want answers. It’s very difficult to turn round and say to them this is the wrong way because they believe this is the only way that they’re going to get attention.”
Television pictures showed a blazing bus surrounded by rioters and hooded youths pelting an abandoned police car with rocks and missiles. Media reported some locals had to flee their homes to escape the violence.
The disturbance was finally brought under control yesterday, after hours of sporadic clashes. Buildings were smouldering with plumes of smoke billowing across the skyline.
“The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said. “There is no justification for the aggression the police and the public faced, or for the damage to property.”
Police Commander Stephen Watson said the scenes were “very distressing” for Londoners and perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“Our intention ... is to bring things to as swift a conclusion as we can. Our absolute aim is to restore normality,” he said.
Local Member of Parliament David Lammy said: “The Tottenham community and Mark Duggan’s family and friends need to understand what happened on Thursday evening when Mark lost his life. To understand those facts, we must have calm.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not