From the BBC website:
Emergency crews remain on the streets of Tottenham, in north London, after rioting saw police attacked and buildings and vehicles set alight.
Overnight, eight officers were injured in the violence which erupted following a protest over the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan on Thursday.
Police said there were still “pockets of criminality” on Sunday morning and residents reported more looting.
The Guardian’s award-winning Paul Lewis was on the ground in Tottenham last night and filed a report in which he wrote:
Looters turned up with cars and shopping trolleys to carry away stolen goods. Nearby, large groups of youths congregated in the surrounding streets with sticks, bottles and hammers.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per monthSome wore balaclava masks, preventing cars from accessing streets as buildings were broken into. Others used large rubbish bins to form burning barricades across the road.
However some of most dramatic looting took place further west, in Wood Green, and continued into the early hours of the morning.
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. . .there was still no police presence at Wood Green high street at 4am, even after dozens of stores had been smashed and raided, setting of multiple alarms.
Around 100 youths sprinted around the highstreet, targeting game shops, electrical stores and high-street clothe chains such as H & M.
Glass windows were smashed and the looters, mostly young men masking their faces, swarmed in.
They emerged with handfuls of stolen goods. “I’ve got loads of G-Star,” said one teenager, emerging from a clothes shop. Others came out clasping shopping bags stuffed with goods.
Three teenagers ran down the street with suitcases filled with stolen clothes. Around ten young men stood outside a smouldering Carphone Warehouse, the windows smashed. The theft was casual and brazen, with looters peering into broken shop windows to see if items of value remained.
There were shocking scenes in the suburban back-streets, where residential front-gardens were used to frantically sort and swap stolen goods.
A teenage boy, who looked aged around 14, drove an stolen minicab erratically down a side-street. On the adjacent street, a man who emerged from his home to find his car burnt-out remonstrated with other young men, who ran past carrying clothes.
Passersby, including people returning home in the early hours from nights out, were stunned to discover the lawless mayhem on the streets.
Official Responses
A Downing Street spokesman said:
The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable. There is no justification for the aggression the police and the public faced, or for the damage to property.
Home Secretary Theresa May said:
I condemn utterly the violence in Tottenham last night.Such disregard for public safety and property will not be tolerated, and the Metropolitan Police have my full support in restoring order.
David Lammy, the local Labour MP, said:
The Tottenham community and Mark Duggan’s family and friends need to understand what happened on Thursday evening when Mark lost his life. To understand those facts, we must have calm.
Kit Malthouse, London’s deputy mayor, said:
I cant see any excuse for the kind of behaviour we saw last night. It’s absolutely outrageous to see it on the streets of London.
Commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne, of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), said:
I understand the distress that the shooting of Mark Duggan has caused to his family and in the community and that people need answers about what happened to him.
And a local resident, examining the gutted interiors of a betting shop and post office, remarked:
They are shells, it’s like the Blitz.
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