By 10.30pm, Tottenham High Road had been taken over by rioters, with two police cars on fire, a number of shops looted and a building ablaze.

Debris from a looted police station lay strewn across the pavement.

The rioters, mostly teenagers, some of whom had covered their faces with scarves, hurled bricks, bottles and eggs at police. Shopping trolleys had been used to charge at police, who appeared heavily outnumbered.

The violence broke out at dusk after approximately 120 people marched on Tottenham police station to express anger over the death of local man Mark Duggan on Thursday.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said the trouble began when "missiles" were thrown at parked patrol cars at 8.30pm. He said one was pushed, blazing, into the middle of Tottenham High Street. Neither of the two officers who had been driving the cars were injured.

Attempts by police to gain some control succeeded by 11.30pm, as they cleared an area of the street with the worst fires, allowing two fire engines onto the street.

The rest of the area remained in the control of rioters, who gathered along side-streets, some carrying sticks.

Most of the crowd consisted of onlookers, who jeered at police vans as they arrived. There were chants of "we want answers" and "whose streets? Our streets". A number of shops had been looted, including a music shop and an electrical and hi-fi store.

Teenagers, some as young as ten, we seen fleeing the street carrying TVs and stereos. One young man, in his early teens, wheeled a shopping trolley laden with stolen items. A general store and a florist had also been broken into.

A Turkish corner store had stacked boxes of bottled mineral water outside its windows to hold the looters at bay.

Officers from the Territorial Support Group were on the scene, charging at rioters and attempting to block off side streets. Riot police, some with dogs, shepherded people away.

Police on horseback also attended the scene, along with reinforcements from the City of London police. A police helicopter hovered above.

Hails of bottles and bricks were intermittently thrown at police from side streets as reinforcements arrived. Rioters also aimed fireworks at police. At one stage, four firework rockets were shot at a line of horses, prompting a charge and a nearby crowd to disperse in panic.

Hundreds of residents gathered to watch the unrest and there several were reports of attacks on bystanders. At one point rioters were seen beating up a man attempting to take film footage of the scene.

Resident David Akinsanya, 46, said several shop windows had been smashed. "It's really bad," he said. "There are two police cars on fire. I'm feeling unsafe. It looks like it's going to get very tasty. I saw a guy getting attacked."

"The police seem very frightened at the moment, people are unstoppable," Tottenham resident Maria Robinson told the BBC. "They've broken into various businesses, jewellery shops, bookies, it's absolutely crazy. They've beaten up a man for talking to the fire brigade."

Social networking site Twitter was abuzz with messages of support and condemnation of the riots.

Police were unable to confirm whether the violence was connected to outrage over the death of Duggan, 29, who was shot in a police anti-firearms operation in Tottenham.

A family friend of Duggan, who gave her name as Nikki, 53, said the father-of-four's friends and relatives had organised the protest to demand "justice for the family".

"They're making their presence known because people are not happy," she added. "This guy was not violent. Yes, he was involved in things but he was not an aggressive person. He had never hurt anyone."

Duggan had been shot in an exchange of fire after the police's Trident operational command unit, which deals with gun crime in the black community, stopped the vehicle he was travelling in. A police officer was said to have escaped injury in the shoot out when a bullet lodged in his radio.

Local MP David Lammy called for calm, saying the community was anxious over what had happened.

Nearby Broadwater Farm, where the protesters began their march, was the scene of riots in 1985 in which a police constable, Keith Blakelock, was killed by attackers wielding knives and machetes.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/06/tottenham-riots-protesters-police

police car on fire

was this recently?

So far the police is yet to come out with an official statement about what happened. Its only their referral to the IPCC that we have which seem to state the man shot at police hence he was killed. However we all remember Jean Charles De Menezes. The media went crazy that he wore a suicide vest, ran from police, acting suspiciously, etc. I remember the notorious Sun headline the next day; "ONE DOWN THREE MORE TO GO"; ie, after the failed London bombings police were said to be looking for four terrorists and the tabloids believed that the first bomber had been gunned down.

No wonder BMEs feel marginalized and disconnected from police. An institution that has admitted to be institutionally racist. Dominated by white people.

However if really the man was a gangster, and shot at police then he probably got what he deserved.

Tottenham has been like a pressure cooker for years due to high unemployment, poverty, lack of opportunities.

This is to be expected when all of the above factors are present in a community,many of tottenham's residents feel disenfranchised and its been like this for years - their reaction to the death of a young man at the hands of the police was more to do with years of supressed anger and frustration, i cant see things improving becuase the british govt have never been interested in creating opportunities for ethnic minorities and the poor - both groups are over represented in tottenham.

cap28:

Tottenham has been like a pressure cooker for years due to high unemployment, poverty, lack of opportunities.

This is to be expected when all of the above factors are present in a community,many of tottenham's residents feel disenfranchised and its been like this for years - their reaction to the death of a young man at the hands of the police was more to do with years of supressed anger and frustration, i cant see things improving becuase the british govt have never been interested in creating opportunities for ethnic minorities and the poor - both groups are over represented in tottenham.

Spot on! Its a replay of the Broadwater farm riots of the 80s. I'm pretty sure most of those rioting are the children of those who rioted in the 1980s. Back then they complained that there was not enough investment in education and the unemployment was out of control; yet the government of the day invested heavily in police equipment to maintain law and order. When Britain was enjoying an economic boom in the late 90s, black men in Tottenham had a 90% unemployment rate - why? pure racism. So now England is in a recession it must be near 100%. The government knows the solution - education and investment but unfortunately it will not be done and the cycle continues.

Abegi, let's call a spade a spade
Most of the youths are blinded by material things influenced by the media
Some would rather sell drugs or fraud with a 'fork stacking shelves' mentality
most drop out before uni with no further future ambitions

Take a cue from the indians who push their kids through school and are largely middle class.
Only few of their teenagers are in gangs
Compare some of the second generation indian immigrants vs black
We need to stop this victim mentality

This riot is just a load of gangsters looting and burning because one of their hoody mates got wasted when he shot at cops.

donspony:

Abegi, let's call a spade a spade
Most of the youths are blinded by material things influenced by the media
Some would rather sell drugs or fraud with a 'fork stacking shelves' mentality
most drop out before uni with no further future ambitions

Take a cue from the indians who push their kids through school and are largely middle class.
Only few of their teenagers are in gangs
Compare some of the second generation indian immigrants vs black
We need to stop this victim mentality

This riot is just a load of gangsters looting and burning because one of their hoody mates got wasted when he shot at cops.

true talk

@nolongting
You know there are areas in england where they have a high proportion of white unemployed, places on the outskirts of london like margate, hastings, ramsgate are full of unemployed white people who get their giros and use the money for drugs and alchol but because those areas are predominantly white there is a lot more injection of govt funds into developing those areas, you see a lot of brand new council housing, parks, community centres, libraries, leisure centres with swimming pools and other leisure facilities and this is in places where the young population do not even want to work, contrast that to places like tottenham, hackney, stonebridge park those places are full  of young disenfranchised (mainly black youth between the ages of 18-25) who have totally given up on the system, many of them are drug dealers, prostit.utes, underage parents  and no one gives a bleed about them, its terrible and its not going to get any better.  We are going to see a  lot more of what happened in tottenham last night especially with the cuts on welfare benefits and rising unemployment.

As at last year black unemployment for young people between the ages of 16-24 stood at a staggering 50%:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8468308.stm

this is what all that rage last night was partly about.

I just thank God sha cos I was at Tottenham till 1am friday night   
Knew nowt bout it till bout 11pm yesterday.

[flash=400,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAII_KuXfsE[/flash]

Looting JD sports

donspony:

Abegi, let's call a spade a spade
Most of the youths are blinded by material things influenced by the media
Some would rather sell drugs or fraud with a 'fork stacking shelves' mentality
most drop out before uni with no further future ambitions

Take a cue from the indians who push their kids through school and are largely middle class.
Only few of their teenagers are in gangs
Compare some of the second generation indian immigrants vs black
We need to stop this victim mentality

This riot is just a load of gangsters looting and burning because one of their hoody mates got wasted when he shot at cops.

You've got it totally wrong, poor blacks are ignored and even criminalised by a system which DELIBERATELY KEEPS THEM OUT OF MAINSTREAM SOCIETY - FACT.

It starts in the classroom where black children are more likely to be excluded from classes than any other group, black children are not encouraged or motivated by white teachers into doing anything constructive with their lives, many are even labelled as disruptive or in a lot of cases streamed into special educational needs schools, many black parents are trusting of the racist british education system and dont understand that they need to play a more involved part in the education of their children, once a child has been labelled as special educational needs they are stigmatised and can never get anywhere within the educational system in this country, this is why many nigerian parents send their kids back to nigeria when they are young in order to avoid this racist policy which destroys the ambition of many perfectly capable black children.

Asian people understand this and many save money and educate their children privately, the ones who go through the state funded system face similar problems especially the bangladeshi community, on the whole, asians are given more opportunity in the british employment market than black africans or carribean people.  Also to show you how racist the system is many black africans who still manage to overcome the obstacles of racism in the educational system and the employment market are still worse off than their white or asian counterparts with LESS educational qualfications.  Why are so many nigerian men with masters degress from british universities working as cleaners, bus drivers, cab drivers and street sweepers?  if education was truly the stepping stone to success surely these people would all have good jobs

A white person with NO educational qualifications usually earns MORE than a black african with several educational qualifications, i have seen this countless times, educational qualifications in the UK is not a determinant of success IF YOU ARE BLACK.  Many whites WITH NO QUALIFICATIONS ARE AT THE TOP OF THEIR CAREERS simply because they are white, the educated whites are usually at the top of their game by the time they are in their mid twenties, let alone the ones who actually attend elite institutions.

^^^ Nigerian parents don't send their kids home to avoid any racist policy rather when they start getting out of hand or misbehaving. FACT!
Whilst some are taken back to learn of their culture.
Nor can you deny most asians are highly educated hence better prospects