UK riots: police get tough as lockdown sets in
Scotland Yard has ordered its officers to use every available force, including possible use of plastic bullets, to stop Britain's riots as London was flooded with 16,000 officers, the biggest police presence in the capital in history.
With early reports emerging of a fourth night of trouble, involving shops broken into and torched in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, some urban areas, notably in London, were in virtual lockdown as many businesses closed and shop windows were boarded up.
Amid intense pressure on police resources the military were taking an increased – though still indirect – role. Some police officers drafted into London were being housed at army barracks, while Essex police were using some army vehicles as backup.
One army unit, the 3rd Rifles based in Glasgow, was also on put on notice so that it is ready to deploy at 12 hours' notice.
Beginning a day of drama, David Cameron, stood in Downing Street hours after returning from holiday in Italy and pledged to flood the capital with 16,000 police – more than double those on duty the previous night and the most ever deployed in one place in the UK – to stem what Scotland Yard is calling the worst UK urban violence in recent history.
The public should expect to see "many more" rioters arrested from now on, the prime minister said. Parliament would be recalled on Thursday to debate the trouble, he added. Shortly afterwards Cameron chaired a meeting of the Cobra security committee at which it is understood he and the home secretary, Theresa May, discussed the possible use of plastic bullets, water cannon and other tactics. Following the meeting the Home Office asked the Ministry of Defence to "scope out what low-end" help the armed forces might provide.
Any decision on using plastic bullets will be up to senior police officers. If used, it would be the first time they have been fired at rioters in the UK outside Northern Ireland. It forms part of a wider reversal of tactics by Scotland Yard following criticism of its response so far. Senior police sources told the Guardian on Tuesday that for the first three nights of trouble officers in London were told to stand by, watch and wait rather than actively seek to arrest rioters and looters. But after anger from the public – who witnessed officers seemingly doing little as youths ran unchecked, burning and looting– and Cameron's intervention, those orders were abruptly changed to leave officers free to tackle troublemakers in the act.
The Met's acting commissioner, Tim Godwin, and his senior team authorised the tougher tactics after watching Monday night's events from their operations centre. In the early hours of Tuesday the decision to use heavily armoured Jankel vehicles to clear the streets of Clapham Junction, south London, was the first indication of a radical change of plan. "The officers on the streets wanted to do nothing more than go in and arrest people as they were in the act of breaking into property, looting and robbing. But they had been told not to and it was just not acceptable," said a source. "That has had to change."
The 16,000 officers in London included 1,500 dispatched from as far afield as Cleveland and Northumbria. "We have given London everything it asked for," said Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers. "And if there is a need for more we will get it."
Deputy assistant commissioner Steven Kavanagh said the Met would consider using every weapon at their disposal, including plastic bullets, kept on standby during the Broadwater Farm riots and trouble at previous Notting Hill carnivals.
Kavanagh denied the force was soft on rioters. "The Met is not namby pamby," he told the Guardian.
A parallel crackdown has begun to track down rioters and looters, with police releasing a gallery of those believed responsible for trouble, including CCTV stills of very young men and women, some with faces clearly visible. So far, Scotland Yard officers have arrested 563 people, with 105 charged. In total 111 officers and five police dogs, have been injured.
Following the scale of Monday night's violence shops in many parts of London closed, with some businesses sending staff home early.
In some places this was a response to direct police warnings; elsewhere fears were stoked by a combination of TV footage and speculation spread on Twitter and elsewhere.
Monday's trouble saw the first confirmed death of the riots, when a 26-year-old man was shot in the head in Croydon. Another man is fighting for his life after being attacked by rioters in Ealing, west London. "Where will this end?" said Jalil al-Mohammed, whose fruit and vegetable shop was looted. "This boy has died and all these shops have gone. It affects everybody not just the shop owners."
The chaos has brought a series of knock-on effects, including the cancellation of Wednesday night's scheduled football friendly between England and the Netherlands at Wembley stadium. This weekend's start of the Premier League football season is also under a cloud, with several fixtures in the capital under threat.
The scale of the trouble brought other politicians back to London along with Cameron. Also newly returned were Nick Clegg and the London mayor, Boris Johnson, both of whom endured a sometimes hostile reception on walkabouts. Clegg was booed by a crowd in Birmingham while Johnson, in Clapham Junction, saw an off-the-cuff speech interrupted by cries of "Where were the police?"
The first rioting began on Saturday in the wake of a protest in Tottenham, north London, following the shooting dead by police of a local man, Mark Duggan, two days earlier. On Tuesday the Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed that initial ballistics tests suggested Duggan had not opened fire on the police before he was killed, although the illegal firearm he was carrying was loaded. The IPCC said Duggan suffered gunshot wounds to his chest and right arm.
The subsequent rioting could cost taxpayers £100m, according to initial estimates by the Association of British Insurers, with police authorities facing the prospect of picking up insurance costs for damage done to properties across the country.
The Riots (Damages) Act 1886 specifies that where damage is caused by people "riotously and tumultuously assembled", local police authorities are required to compensate victims.
The Met, which faces a particularly heavy bill, said it would meet any cost from its reserves, which are funded by the taxpayer.
In several parts of London local people began the initial clean-up by taking to the streets armed with brooms following appeals on social networking sites. Others were taking matters into their own hands in a different way: Amazon.co.uk's sales charts saw a sudden spike in sales for baseball bats and police-style batons.
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