Forty-two people were arrested in north London during a night of looting, arson, and clashes between police and residents sparked by the fatal shooting on Aug. 4, of local resident Mark Duggan. The metropolitan police has been criticized for its poor handling of the situation.
On Saturday night, protesters gathered at Tottenham Police Station on High Road at around 5 p.m., local time, concerned that little had happened since the shooting.
At about 8 p.m., two empty police cars were set alight 200 yards from the station as the rioting escalated into throwing firebombs and bricks at police and buildings. A supermarket and a carpet store were also set ablaze, forcing the families who lived above the shops to flee their homes in nightclothes.
In a nearby retail park near Tottenham Hale subway station, crowds smashed shop windows. Witnesses reported that people pulled up cars and shopping carts to the vandalized shops, filling them with stolen goods.
There was also looting in nearby Wood Green. Vision Express, the Body Shop, Boots, and JD Sports were among the shops that had been looted on Wood Green High Street, reported BBC. Two cars were also burned.
By the end of the night, 26 police and three civilians were reported injured.
Local member of Parliament David Lammy went to the High Road area on Sunday morning. In an interview with BBC News at 1:20 p.m. local time, he questioned why police had not stopped early skirmishes and mentioned that people from outside the area had joined, which escalated the violence. He also talked about the “ordinary people” who had been left homeless, the shopkeepers who lived above their burned out shops.
He said that it was still unknown if there are any fatalities in the rubble.
In a statement answering the criticism, Metropolitan Police Commander Adrian Hanstock said the police were taken off guard by the incident.
“There was no indication that the protest would deteriorate into the levels of criminal and violent disorder that we saw. We believe that certain elements, who were not involved with the vigil, took the opportunity to commit disorder,” he said.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating Duggan’s death. Duggan, 29, was killed when his minicab was pulled over by police to make a preplanned arrest. In the exchange of gunfire, one of the officers received a bullet in his police radio, which likely saved his life.
“Fatal shootings by the police are extremely rare and understandably raise significant community concerns,” said IPCC Commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne in a statement the day after the shooting.
The IPCC said in a statement on Saturday, “We are in close contact with Mark Duggan’s family and today supported 14 family members and friends in viewing and formally identifying Duggan’s body.”
The British Home Office has condemned the violence. “Such disregard for public safety and property will not be tolerated, and the Metropolitan Police have my full support in restoring order.”
Tottenham has the highest unemployment rate in London and is often a flash point for gang violence in crime. It also has a history of racial tensions, particularly between police and the sizable African-Caribbean community.
MP Lammy, in his interview with BBC, drew a distinction to the Broadwater Farm riots in 1985, where a policeman was killed and two were shot. At the time, policing was said to be heavy-handed with 500 police using riot gear and tear gas within the Broadwater Farm estate.
The fighting began after a black woman died of a heart attack when police raided her home. This was during a time high tension between the mostly black community and the 90 percent white local police force.
That was a fight with the police, Lammy said. This was an attack on Tottenham itself.
