From BBC online
Metropolitan Police Commander Adrian Hanstock said: “This is not groups of people acting on behalf of communities or with any consent.
“This is individuals who are actually attacking communities, businesses, properties and houses and actually causing a huge amount of upset and criminality.”
Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham
Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor of London and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said the police did a good job.Talking about the impact on the capital’s image, one year ahead of the Olympic Games, he said: “It’s pretty rotten for London, it does not look good.
(snip)
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh said: “Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality.”
He described some messages posted on social media sites as “really inflammatory, inaccurate” and said police would consider arresting people using Twitter in relation to incitement to violence.
“That investigation is already under way and that is exactly the sort of thing we are looking at,” he said.
I’ve only read about this on BBC, and only after the riots started. I wonder about the criminalization of groups organized via Twitter, and what that will lead to.
In earlier articles, police representatives talked about using social media to counteract what they called inflammatory and misleading information. Isn’t that COINTEL? And haven’t we heard (frequently) from media about how it was all the protesters’ fault? I’m not saying it isn’t in this case, but I would like to know more. Leave a link in the comments for me, please.
ETA: BBC News feed.
ETA: quote from the site; 1821:
Ros Griffiths, who runs the Employment café in Brixton, which provides advice to jobseekers, says the violence across the capital is the result of years of tension between working-class people and the authorities.
I was overhearing an American newscast yesterday, don’t remember which network, that had quotes like, “started out as a peaceful demonstration… some are criticizing police tactics,” etc. The reporter didn’t come right out and say the police rioted, but also didn’t do much to rule out that impression. Maybe ’cause it wasn’t in America, they have more leeway to tell the truth.
What, the police were burning their own cars and looting stores?
Next, you’ll be saying that the cops are causing those flash mobs in down-town Philly.
The residents of Tottenham are pretty indignant at the slowness of the police response.
I don’t know what’s going on, except that more and more of it is happening.
Hey, Eric, are you more equal than others?
And you seem to have exceeded your “best used by” date by about 27 years.