Topic: London

[Eric]

Oh dear.  Jon what have you done this time ?

[Najemikon]

 

[Najemikon]

Whoa. This is bloody serious now.  Croydon, Lewisham, Hackney, Clapham, now Ealing and earlier even Birmingham!  These little bastards are organising themselves over Twitter. The Police are going to have to crackdown properly soon. Rubber bullet time, surely?

There's an excuse in the background that the kids are disadvantaged and have no prospects, so they're angry and demanding rights. Actually, the media and police are quite clear. They're looting, it's that simple.

[Eric]

I havent checked the news yet today but I overheard there was more riots.  That subject is not longer fit for joking, it reminds me of Paris a few years ago when Sarkozy made some stupid comments and shit hit the ceiling.

Jon, what's Croydon, Lewish, Hackney and the other things you named ?

[Najemikon]

They are London districts. So Ealing is the area where the famous studios were, and they made films like Lavender Hill Mob (another area getting attacked) or Passport To Pimlico. They are all areas within Greater London, connected by the tube system or the infamous M25 motorway. The City of London is actually just 1 mile square, right in the middle. The famous bits like Houses of Parliament, etc, are in the City of Westminster, considered another district. The further out you go, the more you get to areas like Hackney. Apparently though there are reports of looting near Tower Bridge

But Birmingham is right away from London in the West Midlands. They really have to crack down on this right now. It needs a zero tolerance approach. There's a guy talking on the news now who sums it up. He runs a business of two shops in Croydon that's been in his family for five generations, since the 1800s. One of his shops is on fire now and the blaze is so intense, the fire brigade can't even tackle it. As you would expect, he is very upset that he might lose his business because of kids. The building itself has such heritage and it's gone. Why? There's no reason.

Just bloody shoot them. 

[Achim]

Shocking.


What triggered it...?

[kahless]

Shocking.


What triggered it...?

A police bullet:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499

[Dragonfire]

How horrible

[snowcat]

Hmm, speculation is that its nothing to do with the police shooting someone, thats just an excuse for the violence.

:/ the buses have stopped running in certain areas of my own city (coventry) and a couple of shops have apparantly had the windows smashed.

its not looking good

[lyonsden5]

Terrible! We have had our own issues with flashmobs organizing on twitter and or Facebook but nothing like this. 

I see they are now in Nottingham! Careful Jon!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-incident-map
 

[Najemikon]

These rioters are actually using the Blackberry network, not Twitter or Facebook so much. BB messages can't be tracked so easily. Today some people became aware of some of them attempting to organise an attack on Nottingham, but so far it hasn't come to pass. Nothing serious yet, Rick!

I'm keeping an eye on http://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/newsandevents/news/2011/august/09/live_updates_police_response_to_disorder and http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23nottspolicelatest

[Eric]

Nothing serious ?  Is the Guardian not reliable ?

[Najemikon]

Yes, very, but they're all yesterdays on that map. And to put things in perspective, one of the major events for Nottingham last night was in an area called St. Ann's. This is a trouble spot going back decades and to be honest, I'd worried if there were no reports from there, it's that notorious.

There are sporadic things kicking off. Ten arrests have just been made at one of the Nottingham schools, for instance. But so far, definitely nothing serious when you consider Manchester and Birmingham have already been hit worse tonight.

[Kathy]

Please be very careful. These types of situations can escalate and it always seems an innocent bystander gets killed.

My heart goes out to your countrymen who have lost so much to those lowlifes.

I hope the police get things back in control - it is really scary.

[Dragonfire]

I have a question...and I'm not making light of the situation.  I'm just a little...confused about something.
Emma said this was tied to a police shooting..something I heard on the news here tonight talked about the police shooting.  What has me confused is I thought that the police didn't use guns in England.  I can't even remember where I heard or read that now, but I know it was from multiple things.  And I've accepted that as truth I guess.

So...do the police use guns in England?  Is it just some of them that have guns?  Or is the no gun thing something that movies made up?