I've waited and waited before commenting on this rioting hoopla simply because the story has been moving that fast that there was a real chance that any blog I wrote would be out of date and old-fashioned within minutes. There's a first time for everything I suppose.
As you're probably aware by now, some dude recently got shot in London, resulting in his family marching on the local police station in a peaceful manner, demanding answers and what-have-you about why he was shot. Having not received satisfactory responses from the Feds, some factions of the protesters decided the natural next step was to start chucking stuff around, setting fire to buses and giving it large whilst wearing masks. A nation looked on, tutted, then got back to whatever it does of a Saturday evening.
Then a strange thing happened. Clearly moved by the plight of this poor chap being killed, some of the fruitier elements of the social underclass decided that they too should take to the streets, sling a few home-made explosive devices and loot anything they could from their local retailers. Now, it would have been bad enough if this had occurred in Tottenham where the original bother occurred, but this lot were talking about their own backyards, namely West Bromwich, Wolverhampton and Manchester. For the next 24 hours, we saw wall-to-wall footage of infants in hoods charging about helping themselves to all manner of unrequited goods. I tend not to scare easily but I have to admit I was feeling a bit anxious for the correspondents who were following the baddies as they ransacked countless clothing stores and set fire to shit.
This is what's weird about this though. When you think of rioters, you think of bloodshed, murders even, but the majority of the scum's ire seems to be directed at shops and buses. Don't get me wrong, there have been a handful of merciless killings which put this trouble into a much more racially-motivated sphere, but it seems to me that most of them saw that the coppers were more or less letting them get on with it, so put their hood up, grabbed a carrier with good handles and set off for a night of looting. That the majority of the perpetrators were youngsters and they fled at the first mention of heavy-handed policing tells me that they weren't trying to make some kind of statement. They just wanted to nick some new trainers.
Now, you may be surprised to learn that my opinions of these ne'er-do-wells isn't exactly positive. If I had my way, the cops would be steaming in beating eight shades of shit out of them, let alone seven. Quite why they were told to stand back and let them get on with it is anyone's guess, and I'd wager that the soft tactics employed initially are what inspired hooligans in other cities to chance their arm in their neck of the woods. If they'd seen limbs being snapped and heads coming off, they might have thought twice about having a crack at Top Shop in the first place.
It's more or less settled down now, and the hand-wringing has begun in earnest. Personally I think the various bodies charged with deconstructing this and coming up with solutions are missing the point when they talk about moral degradation and the like. At any time in any society, there will always be folk who will take things without consent given the opportunity. There will also be those who can be influenced and coerced into doing the same. If there wasn't, we wouldn't need a police force in the first place. So next time, coppers, instead of sitting back cos you might not have enough numbers, wade in,bang a few heads together and the majority of the baddies might just realise it's not worth the risk.
