Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill
So why are the kids saying they are rioting?
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The original riot was sparked by anger at the police, but during the riot there was a lot of opportunistic looting. Watching the reports in TV the following day a lot of people realised that the police were powerless against such a large mob, and that if they organised themselves they could simply raid shops and take what they liked. So that is what they are doing.
Although this started as legitimate protest, what is happening now has nothing to with the original march. It is just organised thieving on a mass scale.
One major factor is that the courts are too lenient on under 18s, and the police know that there is little point in arresting them, so do nothing. Years ago I used to run a video shop in a tough area, we had a lot of trouble with kids either stealing, smashing stuff up, or even beating up younger kids just for the fun of it. The police were worse than useless. A perfect example was when a gang of teenagers seriously beat up a nine year old in the store. I had the whole thing on security video, I even got the name and address of the ringleader, but when I took it to the police, there response was "We don't have time to deal with this". So when kids learn they can get away with anything, some take what they can. On the radio this morning they were interviewing a kid who was not only prepared to talk about it, he was proud and boastful about it. When asked if he was worried about getting caught his reply was "What are they going to do about it? It is my first offence. They will give me an ASBO or community service" (an ASBO is little more than being banned from doing it again, and it being publicly recorded that you were warned).
After I posted yesterday I had to go into town. It was like a war zone (and I am not being dramatic, if you saw photos in the paper without captions, you would have assumed these were photos of a town in Afghanistan). Shop windows smashed in, buildings burnt out (in some cases just a charred frame remained), glass and rubble everywhere. A few streets were so badly damaged that the entire street was closed off because they were not safe to walk down. And the tram system will be out for ages. Not only were parts destroyed by vandalism, but in some places the fires were so hot, the rails melted (and we are talking solid, heavy metal tram rails). And according to the news, the area of London where I lived was not the worst hit area, there is a lot worse elsewhere!
This morning, on the radio, I hear that it is spreading, last night looting and rioting started up all over the country. Living in Britain really is becoming like one of those 70's movies about society breaking down and the gangs taking over!
I got an email from a local politician this morning. Surprisingly he was not trying to make political capital out of it, instead the point of the email was just to try and reassure his constituents. But to me the most poignant and frightening line in it was:
"When I get home tonight, I will have to explain what has happened to my eight year-old son. He will ask why people have done this. What can I tell him?"