London is a very diverse city with many different nationalities, religions and skin colours all living together. A utopia for modern society you would think but there is an age old problem between the police and the black demographic. It's not right that the police use their stop and search powers mostly on black people.
However, it seems that this is what happened and sparked off the violence. A black man was involved in an altercation with armed police and shot while in the back of a cab.
The riots that have followed yesterday (6/7/11) and today seem to be the backlash from the local community as young blacks are seething at the heavy handed police presence in their neighbourhood. As a result, a lot of police brutality has been doled out and this has been greeted with all manner of missiles including petrol bombs and rocks.
Looting has also taken place, taking advantage of the misdirection provided by the rioting. It has been observed that many cars have been pulling up at sports shops and had their boots loaded with stolen merchandise. This leads one to consider whether there is a criminal element instigating the riots in the first place. Creating the riots affords a distraction for the police from other less life-threatening and therefore less urgent criminal activities.
Whatever the fallout from these riots and street battles, one thing is clear: there is a lot of hurt in the community of Tottenham and a lot of work needs to be done to heal the wounds inflicted on both sides.
