Aftermath, St John's Road

Image: © Stephen Richards Taken: 8 Aug 2011

The aftermath of disturbances which started in Tottenham on Saturday but by Monday had spread to other spots in London - Hackney, Peckham, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton, Croydon - as well as Birmingham. (Update: the Guardian website reports incidents in around 50 areas in London.) This was taken shortly before midnight. I arrived after all the "fun", and after the police had seemingly taken control, closing the road beyond the van. The spark which ignited this trouble was the shooting dead by the police of a local man in Tottenham (Mark Duggan) on Thursday in, at the time of writing, somewhat murky circumstances. Since then the main manifestation of unrest has been the looting of shops, mostly those selling electronic goods and clothes. A number of shops here had had windows smashed, although not many appeared to have been robbed, as did one or two in Streatham I also saw. The streets around here, Clapham, Brixton and Streatham were alive with police sirens, vehicles rushing hither and thither, although I didn't actually see much trouble. No doubt the police were feeling the heat after having been criticised for not having stamped on this quicker.

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