""The present trouble in Tottenham was possibly sparked off and escalated by heavy-handed policing following the killing of a young man, quickly followed up by a possible heavy handed stop-and-search in Brixton.""

According to the locals, there were about 400 police out in Tottenham facing around a thousand rampaging vandals, and it took a great deal of time to move in a force sufficient to take action without being ovewhelmed by numbers.

Hands up all those who think that constitutes heavy handed policing.........NO? Neither do I!

And I'm sick to death of hearing all this crap about disadvantaged youth forced to protest in the only way open to them.

On BBC tonight, we were shown the texts on the Blackberry network which was used to plan these events.

Not verbatim (though you can probably find it on the BBC website)

"If you're down for getting some free stuff...........

No mention of political protest at all.

Just a bunch of feral rats going on the rampage to steal, pillage, and destroy

1. Because they can.
2. Because they want all the goodies that are available NOW, but they don't intend to work for them.
3. Because they have zero respect for their fellow man, for the rule of law, or for any moral or ethical concept, compounded with zero self respect.

Save your sympathy for the poor bastards who suffered the loss of everything they had, and in all probability (when the flames die down) those who lie dead in those burned out buildings.

They are the ones who need your sympathy, not the fuckwits who are gloating over a newly acquired plasma TV.

Oh, and in answer to the comment about police marksmen, that second bullet finished up in the radio after hitting the gangster's arm, so not an inept shot at all.

Don T.