London riots

[mountainm]

RIP Broken Britain.. You went soft on discipline!.. You went soft on immigration! You went soft on crime.. Parents were told.. 'No you can't smack the kids'....Teachers were prevented from chastising kids in schools.. The police couldn't clip a troublemaker round the ear.. Kids had rights blah blah blah.. Well done Britain..You shall reap what you sow.. We have lost a whole generation!!


Not my words but very true.

It's nowt to do with that - that's all very right wing and where I'm worried this is going to push us. I was never smacked, clipped around the ear etc. and I turned out OK. This is just about parents not giving a monkeys and a society that values wealth and assets over knowledge and skills. Blame the media for forcing kids to grow up to early, blame the consumer society that feeds off its teat.

 

[santaman2000]

Is the current lost generation me at 32 or my kids at 2?

No I don't think so Southey. England will change and evolve as every country does. But my experiences when stationed there tell me that it will survive and prosper for some time to come. I remember problems even back in the 80s when I was there but I also remember a majority of people who believed in British values and traditions and proudly taught them to their kids. I doubt that has changed despite the high profile exceptions.

 

[Retired Member southey]

No I don't think so Southey. England will change and evolve as every country does. But my experiences when stationed there tell me that it will survive and prosper for some time to come. I remember problems even back in the 80s when I was there but I also remember a majority of people who believed in British values and traditions and proudly taught them to their kids. I doubt that has changed despite the high profile exceptions.

My thoughts too, it is to me a very tiny amount of people causing a large amount of trouble, its not a lost generation its a bunch of yoofs gobbing off about not being given stuff to do and believing they need a certain level of outside influence to be able to flourish,

 

[Andy T]

"That will mostly be a cultural thing - I'd have no prolem having armed officiers if the law abiding general populus are allowed to carry firearms too... "
the problem is it wouldnt be the law abiding populace causing trouble with firearms......it is and always has been the scum who try and live outside the law....which is why even after handguns were outlawed they are still there out on our streets.

 

[ged]

... As to the officers in Chicago ... Taking their weapons off is definitely grounds for firing (if they survive a sudden attack) by any department in the country. I would also have to ask that (if as you say the reason was for their comfort) did they also take off their shirts so they could tale off the bulletproof vest that every American officer wears? Did they take off their concealed back-up guns?

Hehe, no, they didn't take off their shirts and I suppose I should add that it was my surmise that it was for comfort that they took off all the other gear. It never occurred to me that it might have been against regulations although I suppose they might have been going off shift -- would that be different? As for vests, I can't recall whether or not they looked like they were wearing them (would they have been wearing them 30-odd years ago?) and after my initial surprised and shocked stare I remembered my manners (we don't stare at people here). So I didn't look closely enough to see if they had concealed weapons, nor if they took them off and put them in the heap on the table too.

Not wanting to get this out of proportion, it was just one of my defining experiences when I was still very new to America. It might even have been my first trip (in which case it was definitely somewhere around Chicago or Waukegan) but I'm afraid I really can't remember. Another defining experience was the guy in a pawn shop in Savannah who tried to sell me an AK47 for six hundred dollars when I'd gone in for a bicycle. But I did get the bicycle, I paid 72 dollars for it. Now I think back that was a rip-off too, but I still have it.

 

[Trunks]

Don't worry, David Icke will be here in a minute.

"It wuz the lizzerds wat dun it"

Maybe not lizards, but some other low-lifes seem to have been fanning the flames!

"Claim: Youths Offered Money To Start Riots
Violence in Leicester after “journalists” tried to pay off kids, according to Tweets"

http://www.infowars.com/claim-youths-offered-money-to-start-riots/

 

[ged]

My thoughts too, it is to me a very tiny amount of people causing a large amount of trouble...

It looks very much like that. The trouble is that if we let them get away with it, and by and large we do thesedays until things get out of hand, then a small number of miscreants can cause hideously expensive damage, way beyond any contribution to society that they will ever make in their entire lives. On top of the costs of cleaning up and rebuilding, the costs of following up with the criminal investigations, judicial procedures and penalties are even more hideous. It will take hundreds or thousands of times as many people working full time for months and sometimes years afterwards even to get things back to the unsatisfactory state of affairs that we started with. The costs are simply unbearable at this point.

This isn't political, it's simple economics. We cannot afford not to crack down on this sort of thing.

 

[Bushwhacker]

This more like it, proper policing.

[video=youtube;i1b74BdPfSQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1b74BdPfSQ[/video]

 

[spandit]

This more like it, proper policing

What, taking about 30 policemen to push one bloke off his bike?

 

[Retired Member southey]

It looks very much like that. The trouble is that if we let them get away with it, and by and large we do thesedays until things get out of hand, then a small number of miscreants can cause hideously expensive damage, way beyond any contribution to society that they will ever make in their entire lives. On top of the costs of cleaning up and rebuilding, the costs of following up with the criminal investigations, judicial procedures and penalties are even more hideous. It will take hundreds or thousands of times as many people working full time for months and sometimes years afterwards even to get things back to the unsatisfactory state of affairs that we started with. The costs are simply unbearable at this point.

This isn't political, it's simple economics. We cannot afford not to crack down on this sort of thing.

Make no mistake i belive in strong measures to deal with this kind of disorder, but I do not think that as a society we have a lost generation,

 

[Bushwhacker]

What, taking about 30 policemen to push one bloke off his bike?

Yeah, it's the only language they'll ever understand.

 

[Pict]

Over here in the Americas armed police are the norm so it has never given me pause. In my city here in Brazil we have both armed and unarmed officers. The unarmed officers only carry batons like your bobbies over there, they mainly police low risk public places. They also routinely get held up at gunpoint for their bullet proof vests. All of our banks here have two or three armed guards as well. In the US it is very rare to see police armed with anything other than handguns but here in Brazil it is a daily thing to see them armed with heavy weapons.

It bothers me more here that the police have total liberty to stop and search anyone at any time for any reason. In the US they have to define probable cause which means you get left alone and don't ever have to explain yourself. Here's a tip if a US police officer ever asks you permission to search your car, bags, etc, it means by definition that he does not have probable cause and you are free to say no. If they have probable cause they do not ask, they tell.

Most US states have a carry permit system of some type and the number of carry permits revoked for firearms related reasons are infinitesimal compared to the number of active permits. Law abiding people can handle the responsibility to be armed for their own defense and those that do not obey the law cannot.

BTW I have never seen American cops strip off their weapons and lay them on the table. That would appear as strange to the majority of us as it did to ged, so my guess is that its a Chicago thing and that seems to fit in with the general impression of the CPD. My brother is a cop in PA and he makes a point of always paying full price for his coffee and meals and he leaves his weapon holstered until the end of his shift.

 

[suburban bushwacker]

Interesting.
I was surprised to read how many of you felt we have too much freedom, and that members of the underclass have no chance of redemption. I had expected bushcrafters to be more adaptable and imaginative.

I live in hackney, literally three streets away from the nearest burned out shop, my friends house is in the news footage of Mare St.
Personally I'd have waded in with the Pigs, Snatch Squads and Baton Rounds a lot sooner, the tactic is proven to work.

A few of you have asked why the 'yoof' cant work at the jobs currently done by 'new europeans' Simples. Have you ever met any 'new europeans'? They want to work, are better educated, and having come a long way to work are more determined. Our benefits culture has crippled a generation, who in turn have crippled the current generation. 'Yooves' who are emotionally and mentally unequipped to compete in the marketplace for jobs. Sorry but its true, these kids are the victims of a culture that has rewarded bad behaviour and made a fetish of celebrity and criminality. They are shut out of the much fetishised housing market - being told you're nothing if you dont own your own home, that easy money awaits property developers, but that you'll never be able to own a home, isn't exactly a way to being a stakeholder is it? If you are not a stakeholder why shouldn't you just take what you want? We have allowed them to believe that society has nothing to offer them and in so doing have lost a generation. Neither hand-wringing or birching are likely to be the solution.

Before the Mail readers try to assert that I'm letting off the perpetrators, let me clarify, nothing excuses the the assaults on people and property. Just as nothing excuses a group of men with battons beating sixteen year old girl to the ground. That is not law and order.
The police are often heard to complain that they are not respected, here's the news, to be respected you have to be respectable, AKA those who want respect give respect. Simples. Beating that girl to the ground in front of a small crowd of witness was asking for confrontation. We are not living on the Arabian peninsular, we dont expect the forces of law and order to behave that way. I wouldn't stand for it and I doubt many of you would either.

The Met have an extremely incompetent leadership who are yet to grasp the expression 'Hearts and Minds', a firearms department who are yet to grasp Col. Coopers four rules of firearm safety, and a canteen culture which seems to excuse criminality such as selling storys and information to the newspapers. Hardly a recipe for community cohesion.

We need to have a re-think of the whole thing. Sorry not so simples.
Thanks for reading
SBW

 

[sandbender]

interesting....we need to have a re-think of the whole thing. Sorry not so simples.
Thanks for reading
sbw

+1 .

 

[suburban bushwacker]

Great quote from Waterstone's employee on the news: "We'll stay open, if they steal some books they might learn something"

 

[Paul_B]

Well I'm fortunate in that I don't live 3 streets away from a burnt out house and don't have mates who's house has burned down. I do work among people who fit nicely into the lost generation stereotype. Their mentality is such that I fully expect they might well have been in a riot if one came along their way but only for the fun of it. There is a lot of jokes about wanting a new telly and someone being annoyed that he had just paid for some new trainers when he could have just picked on up in a riot. There is a lot of that mentality but it is only joking as the riots haven't reached up here. The one thing I would say that these people ARE working, they are doing jobs among the Eastern Europeans. They might not have the piece of paper showing how "intelligent" they are but I can tell you right now that some of them are at least as bright as the most intelligent Polish at our place. It's not always lack of intelligence or mentality that keeps them out of work. It sometimes is of course. Our company gave some youths a chance and they FCUKed up that chance over and over again. From smoking weed on the premises to driving company vehicles they shouldn't be on to just disappearing for a few hours. The trouble is a few years down the line they turned up all apologetic looking for a job and sounding serious about it too. No chance was the comment form above. They had realised you have to work for what you get. A change of mentality but too late with our company.

Anyway I ramble. My point is the types caught up in this rioting CAN make it and DO make it into work. It is not about their situation but about them as individuals standing up as part of society not on its edges. To excuse their behaviour on account of where they come from is about as simplistic as saying they are just thugs and criminals. Both views are just opposite ends of the line whereas the true case is somewhere in between or perhaps all the way along it. As in both reasons and more too. Well that is kind of all I have to say on the people doing this apart from a lot are just opportunistic in their rioting. I also bet there are some kids of nice middle class households too in among the "fun".

The other thing is about the police. We have the Met who have been hamstrung in their abilities to sort this out. There are supposed to be orders from above to watch and wait. Then use CCTV to find the people after the event. In other forces they are allowed to go in and confront criminality and public order offences when they see them. Arrest those involved and then use CCTV to ID those who get away after the event. The Met officers in the rank and file (according to comments from past senior officers still in contact with still serving colleagues in news articles I've read) want to get "stuck in" and stop these public order offences. Now to me that smacks of weakened leadership or weakened rules of engagement or protocols. Or perhaps a fear of exposing their officers to attack after the event. I don't know what it all involves as I'm not a policeman nor do I have much contact with the police (have friends and past friends who were serving officers though in more semi-rural or rural areas). Even I can appreciate that it is a hard job to police public disorder, that it is stressful and you can over react if not sufficiently trained or even if you are trained but not had much experience of it. Even experienced and trained officers can get it wrong they are only human. The difference is if I screw up I get a bollocking and then can go out and find new ways to screw up. If a copper in a riot screws up then he or his colleague could be in the sh1t getting their head kicked in or they lose control and do the kicking or even just push someone away who dies. One way their safety is at risk the other way their job/career/livelihood, financial security (lawsuits) and even liberty is at risk. All this is while in a highly charged and stressful situation.

I guess it is partly to protect the officers that the Met are holding back a bit more than those further north. Perhaps in London there are more do-gooders jumping on any mistake with legal and PR teams than in Birmingham or certainly Liverpool and Manchester. Up where I work there are lads who have no qualms about punching a copper if he's being a bit gobby (and they can be at times). One guy took off after punching a copper who pushed him for no reason with his helmet. They've got it all worked out you know these lads. They turn up in the scruffiest trackie bottoms and all dishevelled to the magistrates who being good middle class do-gooders take it easy on them. They all know that for minor offences you turn up looking like you are poverty stricken but for the more serious ones you turn up smart as this helps then. It really shocked me that they had that level of awareness of the system and how to play the magistrates!!

 

[Paul_B]

Sorry for the long post. I hope you skipped most of it.

 

[rik_uk3]

I like the idea of the Israeli water cannons that fire water scented with a disgusting smell (skunk, not dope, animal) that lasts for days on you.

In fact, can't we hire some of the Israeli Defence Force to sort out the riots, I'm pretty sure things would be quite within 24 hours of them being deployed

You've got to love them, they use stun grenades to get people off the streets

 

[andybysea]

On the BBC news last night they had a Reverand of the area where it all started,and he did nothing but blame the Police,now obviously if he's saying it on tv he's saying it to his ''flock'' who then when there little Tom,Dick,and Jamal come home after a night's looting, with a 88'' tv under there arm,the parent's are going to say ''did the nasty Policeman make you take that!''

 

[789987]

Riots in London a year before the Olympics???
Just seems to me that this is all too convenient.
This isn't a spontanious reaction to the shooting of a hood. It's a well organised, country wide, plan that has
been long in the planning.
Taking that these 'rioters' couldn't organise a fart in a bean factory, the question is who is behind it all.
When the smoke clears expect lots of new 'measures', for your safety, from your Government.

i dont know about well organised, i think this started from opportunism and then all the other chancers thought "why not... i'll get a new tv"

but the government will bring in a whole raft of measures off the back of this. in particular i reckon the internet bill they are working on at the minute that allows them to block access to sites - mainly copyright issues allegedly - will be beefed up with the power to close social networking sites and the like to stop co-ordinated civil disturbance.

the number of times they have been mentioned in the press demonstrates this.