ANALYSIS:The violence spread like wildfire when it became obvious the police could not maintain order, writes CAROLINA BRACKEN
ENTIRE COMMUNITIES have been devastated by fire, shops have been looted, and the number of casualties continues to rise. For several days, London has been engulfed by the worst violence of its kind for decades, and it has been spreading to other English cities.
The catalyst for the riots was the death of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, a father of four who was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London, last Thursday.
The conclusions of the Independent Police Complaints Commission – the independent body which investigates allegations of police misconduct – as to the exact sequence of events may take up to six months. However, preliminary reports show that Duggan was killed by a single bullet, discharged as specialist firearms officers attempted to arrest him.
There are unconfirmed reports that Duggan was a known drug dealer. The Voice, which styles itself as "Britain's favourite black newspaper", has claimed that he was involved in the so-called "Star Gang" whose north London turf wars have been linked to at least three murders in as many years.
At the time of his death, Duggan was under investigation by the Metropolitan Police as part of Operation Trident, an ongoing effort to tackle gun crime in the black, urban community, and was illegally in possession of a converted handgun, capable of firing live ammunition.
Though a tragedy in itself, this isolated incident has sparked an epidemic of looting, arson and violence, afflicting areas as geographically and demographically diverse as many parts of London and Bristol, Nottingham, and Leeds.
So what is the cause of the violence? And why has it spread so vociferously?
Two days after the shooting, 200 of Mark Duggan’s friends, family and supporters gathered at Tottenham police station. Semone Wilson, Duggan’s partner of 13 years and the mother of his children, fronted the assembly, together with a group of women from the local community. Aggrieved at the lack of communication from the police force, the crowd chanted “We want answers”, but remained entirely non-violent throughout.
Having eschewed their requests for dialogue for almost an hour, a chief inspector finally came out to speak to the crowd. Although he accepted that Duggan’s relatives deserved contact with a higher-ranking officer, no senior official came.
As word of the unsatisfactory police response spread throughout north London, eyewitnesses reported the arrival of a belligerent gang carrying fireworks and petrol cans.
Some say that the initial spark came as a faction of the newcomers took out their frustration on a nearby police car, setting it alight. Others say that the ensuing violence steamrolled after a 16-year-old girl at the station was confronted by armed police with riot shields and batons.
In reality, the exact nature of the initial stimulus is of little significance. Rumours rose and spread in the vacuum left by the dearth of police communication, and soon what had actually happened mattered little in comparison to what people had come to believe.
Since Saturday evening, the UK has watched in horror as the contagion of violence has intensified. Unlike the original protesters, the rioters now storming city streets are not seeking to achieve a set goal, nor are they driven by a particular political consciousness.
Rather, the first scenes of violence sparked further opportunistic outbreaks in other areas, involving vandals and thugs with no connection to the original protests. The wildfire spread of the rioting grew in force as it became clear that the police did not have the capability, in terms of resources and tactics, to maintain order.
As more and more people became embroiled in the riots, others have been tempted to join them, confident that one unexceptional individual in a sea of hundreds is unlikely to be caught or to face retribution.
And so the domino effect has continued. Violence has led to more violence, and rioters and arsonists of every age, gender and ethnicity have fed off each other’s daring, safe in their collective anonymity. Mobile messaging and social networking have made it all the easier to join in.
Race is not an issue – every race has been involved in the rioting, and it has been condemned by leaders from every ethnic background. Television footage and photographs show racially mixed groups of rioters, united in thuggery. Young male hoodlums have been to the fore, but the age span has stretched from children as young as 10 to men old enough to be on pensions.
With the chaos showing no sign of abating yesterday, there has been much soul searching in the UK about its root causes.
It is clear, however, that some suggestions about intense social deprivation and economic hardship being to blame are greatly exaggerated. The trouble may have started in areas marked by social deprivation and high levels of unemployment, but it spread rapidly and took hold in better-off places like Ealing and Croydon.
What is demonstrably at play, and what connects the rioters, is brute opportunism – individuals thinking only of themselves and acting only for the moment, taking advantage of an overburdened police force and crippled community.
But what of the police?
Some have asserted that the initial reaction of the police was too tame, coloured by their fear of further criticism after their somewhat aggressive response to the student protests earlier this year.
Regardless of the veracity of these claims, it is clear that even the best efforts of the dwindling force were utterly overwhelmed by the relentless vigour and scale of the attacks. Over the past 12 months, police numbers in London have plummeted by more than 4,600, and a weak presence on the streets served only to disperse violence rather than stop it.
Shortly after returning from holiday prematurely, British prime minister David Cameron bolstered the police presence, bringing the total number of officers on the ground in London to an unprecedented 16,000. It had become evident that only by strengthening police numbers would officers be able to close off the opportunities for violence and looting that the rioters are all too ready to abuse.
Duggan’s family have been anxious to distance themselves from the disturbances, and it is true that the protests have become more than the sum of their parts. A few sporadic acts of violence gained their own momentum, spreading across London and dragging down entire boroughs in their wake.
Carolina Bracken is a research fellow with Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, in London