Cameron Deploys 10,000 More Officers to Riots
Hopes that the worst unrest in Britain in a generation had crested and begun to fall continued to weigh uneasily against fears that more robust police action might fail to put more than a temporary curb on the disorder. Sudden flare-ups continued in parts of London, with minor attacks reaching even into the upscale Knightsbridge shopping district, a major tourist draw. With a decision not to call in the army, a step the government considered and dismissed on Tuesday, the police force appeared to be stretched near its limit by what amounted to a risky shell game, with forces outside London sending their crack antiriot units into the capital as reinforcements. One redeployed unit traveled from Manchester only hours before scores of youths stormed into that city’s center, setting fire to cars and buildings and looting shops in what local <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>nike shoes online</strong></a> officials described as the worst mayhem to hit the city in modern memory. The situation posed a daunting challenge for Prime Minister David Cameron, who returned overnight on Monday from a vacation in Italy to take charge of what appeared to have been a faltering government reaction to the mayhem. He flew into a storm of criticism, from residents of the neighborhoods hit by the rioting and from others across a wide political spectrum who said that he should have acted sooner to crack down on the unrest. Mr. Cameron had hesitated for two days to abandon his break at a villa in Tuscany as the looting and arson spread across London, and then to other cities, from its start in the Tottenham area in northeast London after Mark Duggan, 29, who was said by the police to have been a local gang member, was shot and killed by an officer last week. On Tuesday, a police oversight body said that forensic tests had shown that both shots fired at the scene had come from a police officer’s Heckler and Koch submachine gun, and that the tests had so far shown no evidence that the loaded Italian-made <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>cheap nike shoes </strong></a> BBM pistol carried by Mr. Duggan had been fired in the confrontation. That account, by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, conflicted with the initial police account, which asserted that the police firearms unit had opened fire only after shots had been fired at the officers. But the commission’s spokeswoman, Rachel Cerfontyne, whose cautious statement appeared to reflect the commission’s concern that it say nothing to inflame the violence, said reports circulating in Tottenham and elsewhere that Mr. Duggan had been “executed” with shots to the head were false. He died, she said, from “a single gunshot wound to the chest,” and another to <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>cheap nike shoes online</strong></a> his arm. For the moment, though, the circumstances of Mr. Duggan’s death appeared to be remote from the forces driving the riots, at least in the assessment of many of those who are most familiar with the neighborhoods affected. Community organizers, neighborhood residents and members of Parliament who represent the districts, including several who, like Mr. Duggan, <a href="http://www.friendsdock.com/blog.php?user=linda&blogentry_id=66220"><strong>TO YS: Weekly Photography Challenge</strong></a> were of Afro-Caribbean descent, have said, overwhelmingly, that his death, while providing the original trigger for the violence, has had little or nothing to do with the looting and arson. Among those who have spoken out is Diane Abbott, a left-wing member of Parliament from the Labour Party who represents Hackney, one of the London neighborhoods worst hit by the rioting. Writing in Monday’s issue of The Independent, Ms. Abbott said the pattern of the current disorder was similar to that of the last major racial rioting in London, which occurred in 1986. Now, as then, she said, “parts of the community seem to have been a tinderbox waiting to explode” because of joblessness and cuts in government services. But she added: “As was the case 26 years ago, nothing excuses violence. There is no doubt that all types of mindless thugs latched onto the disturbances.”
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