Reply to: The Police

[BA to the Stars]

Hazel Blears on Talk Sport getting stick as it is the underclass created by Labour when they were in power causing the problems. She claims that she was tough on crime when she was in power and it has nothing to do with her parties policies when in power - I must have blinked when she was tough on crime. Most of the trouble causers will have only known Labour being in power aside from the last year.

[SueEllen]

Err - wasn't that exactly what triggered this outbreak the first place - the police shooting first.

Nope.

Looting the Tandem Centre in Colliers Wood, the shops around Clapham Junction Station, the shops in Ealing towards West Ealing, burning down the Reeves furniture shop in Croydon and destroying Peckham has feck all to do with the shooting of Mark Duggan.

Most people in South and West London have little to do with people from North London let alone if they are kids and unemployed.

[MarillionFan]

This is all about gangs. 2,800 crime gangs ravage UK streets - Times Online

and belonging to gangs. London Street Gangs: Soca: Highs and lows of Serious Organised Crime Agency

Media archive of London gang related incidents to support the London Street Gangs website. There are currently approximately 205 gangs in existence across Greater London sub-divided into many more cliques and sub-sets. There are at least 15,000 people who belong to such groups across London (this represents a tiny 0.2% of the cities total population). London boroughs with the highest number of independent gangs are Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Newham. Some of the oldest and more established gangs with a deep history are located in Brixton, Deptford & New Cross, Euston & Kings Cross, Hackney, Harlesden, Leyton, Peckham, Tottenham and Tower Hamlets.

And those gangs are made up of primarily London Street Gangs: Mental health of black and ethnic minority young people ignored, claims study

But it aint new

"Many poor orphans in Victorian London survived by joining pick pocketing gangs controlled by adult criminals. At the beginning of the 19th century, child criminals in Britain were punished in the same way as adults. They were sent to adult prisons, transported to the various Australian penal colonies, flogged, and sentenced to death for crimes such as petty theft.[5][6][7]"

[MarillionFan]

Err - wasn't that exactly what triggered this outbreak the first place - the police shooting first.

Bollocks. It's because someone scuffed their trainers at the vigil and lost the plot.

Petulant little feckers.

[AtW]

Err - wasn't that exactly what triggered this outbreak the first place - the police shooting first.

Armed squads do shooting from time to time, it's their job.

If the riots were against police strictly because of shooting it would have been one thing, but looting stuff shows its completely different motivation. Don't think it's time to shoot even rubber bullets, but FFS - police has got force of law on their hands and if suspects don't surrender then force should be used. Resisting arrest is like what, a few years in jail?

[centurian]

UK history means the army and police don't like going in and shooting first.

Err - wasn't that exactly what triggered this outbreak the first place - the police shooting first.

[minestrone]

Sure, so you're an armchair thug with no more interest in the rule of law than the rioters. Ooooh, the irony.

So if someone is climbing through your house window and you are standing there with a hockey stick in a position to beat the crap out of him are you just going to think "well if I hit him I am just as bad as him, I'll just let him steal the laptop then phone the police after he is gone"?

Bollocks.

I will make sure stinky arse is in physio for a year before he is able to pick up a bit of andrex.

[SueEllen]

Are you sure?

That's what I meant.

The head Police honchos I've heard on the radio keep backing away from the fact they are allowed to use plastic bullets tonight if needed.

It's fine using those tactics in a "hidden backwater" of the UK but not on the British mainland where the eyes of the world's media are on them.

[Cliphead]

UK history means the army and police don't like going in and shooting first.

Are you sure?

[SueEllen]

They've learnt their lesson and it would not happen now. Why? Because average firepower they pack is enough to deal with the problem, where as poor British lads who got linched by the crowd in Iraq (2004?) did not have fooking ammo!

UK history means the army and police don't like going in and shooting first.

[Old Greg]

So what, I will not cry and he will not do it again.

Britain had to go through years of serious criminal acts around northen europe so these little cretins can run amock round London, time this country grew a set.

Sure, so you're an armchair thug with no more interest in the rule of law than the rioters. Ooooh, the irony.

[AtW]

Quite. Reminds me of when the yanks got spanked in Mogadishu in the early 90s.

They've learnt their lesson and it would not happen now. Why? Because average firepower they pack is enough to deal with the problem, where as poor British lads who got linched by the crowd in Iraq (2004?) did not have fooking ammo!

[PAH]

The problem is the kids are crafty. They know how to run into side streets. This isn't a normal riot.

Quite. Reminds me of when the yanks got spanked in Mogadishu in the early 90s. Too much lawlessness allowed to thrive. Somalia still hasn't solved their problem, can London do any better?

BBC News - Black Hawk survivor 'would return to help Somalis'

[SueEllen]

Your average 30 year old policeman dressed up in full riot gear is never going to catch some teenager. They need to be surrounded, kettled and battered and we have to look the other way while it is going on.

The quicker that happens the quicker the country can go back to normality.

The problem is the kids are crafty. They know how to run into side streets.

This isn't a normal riot.

[minestrone]

Your average 30 year old policeman dressed up in full riot gear is never going to catch some teenager. They need to be surrounded, kettled and battered and we have to look the other way while it is going on.

The quicker that happens the quicker the country can go back to normality.