Windows smashed with baseball bats, burglarized stores everywhere, and vehicles ablaze were just some of the devastating results after the latest riots in London. The young looters behind this rebellion acted in protest after a man from London’s northern Tottenham district was killed in a police shootout. Akin to wildfire, the London-born mutinies rapidly spread to at least three other cities where dozens upon dozens of people had been injured, arrested, or killed. “Two police cars and a double-decker bus were set alight, stores were looted, and several buildings along Tottenham’s main street—five miles from the site of the 2012 Olympics—were reduced to smoldering shells,” The Associated Press reported. When asked about her response to the riots, Junior Arley Ruskin commented “At first, I didn’t think the riots was that big of an issue. However, after hearing my neighbor’s stories of what was going on across the pond, and of what they were being exposed to on their news stations, I knew something had to be done.”
A BBC correspondent described the atmosphere in London as extremely tense, and the rebellions eerily well-thought out: “I saw 100 or so young men with ski masks and hoods pulled down. They seemed to be very well-organized, communicating with each other on radio. The police were in force but they did not seem to know what to do.” Similar to the Middle East uprisings, means of technology such as Facebook and Twitter were utilized in order to rally mobs. A Daily Telegraph article stated that in Birmingham, a city northwest of London, “police were prepared for trouble after a campaign on Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger and Twitter warned of violence and encouraged others to get involved.” Junior Frederick Hodgin said of the technology being used; “[The riots] seems pretty bad, but for all we know it could just be the media blowing it up again.”
The London-based revolts have received mixed reception from the watching world. Senior Eric Chiriboga said “I think that people were being petty and showing a blatant disregard for the well-being of others by rioting so severely, and despite what they believe about Duggan’s death, nothing can justify what they did.” In a Guardian report, one Egyptian man was reported to have via Twitter, “frustration at those likening the British riots to the Arab Spring. ‘Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge…by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players.’”
As aforementioned, the riots were presumed to occur in reaction to a race-driven shooting; however, analysts say the real motivation lies in Britain’s economic cutbacks. Recent public spending reduction has been the most painful squeeze on spending that the U.K. has endured since the 1940s.