Cameron vows to restore order:
Parliament recalled from recess:
Britain reels in riots
*Claims first fatality
*Parents urged to keep children indoors
*All police leave cancelled
*Questions about Olympic security
Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament Tuesday and ordered
thousands of extra police onto the streets after Britain’s worst rioting
in decades left parts of London and other cities in flames.
As the disorder claimed its first fatality with the death of a man
found shot during looting in south London, Cameron vowed to do
“everything necessary to restore order to the streets” after three
nights of violence. A 26-year-old man was found with gunshot wounds in a
car near by, and police said Tuesday he had died, becoming the first
fatality of the riots. A murder investigation has been launched.
The Prime Minister cut short his holiday in Italy to return to
Britain for an emergency meeting on the riots, which he condemned as
“sickening scenes”.
Police have begun releasing CCTV pictures of the looters, many of
them in their teens. Some 525 people have been arrested in London in the
last three days, Scotland Yard said.
Cameron warned: “You will feel the full force of the law. And if you
are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the
punishments.”
He said that all police leave had been cancelled and there would be
16,000 officers on the streets of London on Tuesday night, compared to
the 6,000 deployed on Monday evening.
Riots swept through London and in other English cities including
Birmingham and Liverpool overnight Monday, the third consecutive night
of violence which began in the north London district of Tottenham on
Saturday following the shooting of local man by police.
The family of the dead man, Mark Duggan, condemned the violence
Tuesday, saying in a statement that they were “deeply distressed” by the
unrest, which they insisted “has nothing to do with finding out what has
happened to Mark”.
Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said the
rampage by hundreds of hooded youths overnight was “unprecedented” and
said police resources were stretched “to an extent I have never seen
before”.
He said that plastic bullets — used during sectarian unrest in
Northern Ireland but never before in mainland Britain — have been
considered as “one of the tactics” to stem the tide of unrest.
The violence has raised questions about security ahead of the 2012
London Olympic Games, and it prompted the Football Association to cancel
Wednesday’s friendly between England and the Netherlands at Wembley
Stadium.
In some areas on Monday, rioters took control of the streets with
little sign of a police presence. In Clapham, a mainly affluent area of
southwest London, hundreds looted a department store for at least two
hours, witnesses said.
Newspapers declared “mob rule”, and one police officer, Paul Deller,
admitted on Tuesday: “We simply ran out of units to send.”
Police have also urged parents to keep their children at home.
They said too many people had been arrested to hold in the city’s
police station jails, including three for attempted murder after a
police officer was hit by a car in Brent, northwest London.
At least 44 police officers were injured overnight Monday, in
addition to at least 35 who were hurt on the previous two evenings,
police said.
Despite the scenes of devastation, Acting Police Commissioner Tim
Godwin said there were “no plans” for the army to get involved.
The speaker of the House of Commons has agreed to recall parliament
on Thursday so lawmakers could debate their response to the riots,
Cameron said — a highly unusual move highlighting the seriousness of the
crisis.
The violence began on Saturday in the ethnically-mixed north London
district of Tottenham, following a protest against Duggan’s shooting two
days earlier.
An inquest into the 29-year-old’s death opened on Tuesday, and heard
that he died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after the taxi he
was travelling in was stopped by police investigating gun crime in the
black community.
Copycat riots broke out in other flashpoint areas on Sunday, and by
Monday night they had spread across the city, from the wealthy districts
of Notting Hill and Clapham, to inner-city Peckham and Hackney, and
suburban Croydon and Ealing.
Cameron visited some of the worst destruction in Croydon in south
London, where an entire block of buildings — including a 100-year-old
family furniture business — was burned down, sending flames leaping into
the night sky.
The violence also spread outside London on Monday night, including to
the northwest city of Liverpool, where hundreds of rioters rampaged
through the streets for several hours, setting cars and dustbins alight.
Police in Birmingham, in central England, said they had made 138
arrests as youths ran riot and looted shops in the city centre
overnight, while police in the western city of Bristol battled to
contain a mob of 150 youths. LONDON, Monday, AFP
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