Petrol bombs have been thrown at police and a shop, two patrol cars and a bus set on fire in a disturbance in Tottenham, north London. The incident began after a protest over the fatal shooting of a young man by police on Thursday turned violent. About 300 people have gathered outside the police station on the High Road.
Members of the community had taken to the streets to demand “justice” after the shooting of a 29-year-old father-of-four, named locally as Mark Duggan. The BBC’s Ben Ando, who is at the scene, described the situation as a “stand off”. Two patrol cars were set alight at about 20:20 BST but officers were not inside at the time.
Shops in the area have also been looted with people seen pushing away shopping trolleys full of goods. A double decker bus was set on fire at the junction of High Road and Brook Street while a shop on the High Road has also been set alight.
Sounds awful, doesn’t it? The police have shot an innocent man and the local community are rightly furious and feel the need to resort to violent means to ensure he gets “justice”.
However, this is not apparently the full story:
A police officer blasted in the chest in a gunfight escaped with his life when the bullet struck his police radio. He was following a known offender from London’s notorious Broadwater Farm Estate during a covert operation when the suspect opened fire.
Mark Duggan, 29, shot the officer from Scotland Yard’s elite firearms squad CO19 in the side of his chest with a handgun.
But the bullet lodged in the police radio the undercover officer was carrying in a side pocket. Armed officers shot the gunman dead seconds later.
Why would the BBC miss out apparently important information in its report?
Oh First lol (Well after your near 50 on last post). It’s now getting interesting – My old mate Wiggy Wettone is on Sky. Think themselves lucky it kicked off on LT and they could retain officers on duty. I know of some still up there who started 3pm Sat. This is different from all that Student disorder – Big Boys time and reminds me of early 80′s. Not actually confident that across London there are sufficient cops to deal with what is to come … all the down scaling of shifts coming home to roost. BBC sucks ….. Dismantle huge swathes of it except Radio 2 ! Meanwhile hordes of experienced ex riot police sit idle having chucked in their tickets. Reap what they Sow .. all that media stuff over Big Tony has affected quality of L2 response.
I was shocked by the massive discrepancy. When I first read about the shooting on Thursday the BBC news article didn’t even mention that a police officer had been shot! How did they miss that rather vital piece of information?
As for the riots 1) I am shocked that whoever it was has managed to whip up a riot in such a short space of time and 2) that people think it is an appropriate thing. Nobody is oppressed by the state here, I saw people on Twitter comparing the riot to the actions of revolutionaries in the totalitarian arab countries. They can fuck right off.
Surprised you don’t think the BBC is right, you police-hating troll, you…
Ha!
I was so disgusted when I saw that last night, I made a formal complaint via their web form, not that I expect it to be even read…
I copied in the original, quite short text, incase they changed the story later to deny the original bias. Well, they did change the story, but still did not even try to address the bias.
Try looking on the bright side on a day when we should be counting small blessings, Blue.
I am so glad to be living in a Country where honest police are pivotal to the sophisticated and orderly society; where drugs and guns are never planted on suspects and where evidence is never subjected to tampering or fabricated through falsehood and collusion.
I mean, anything less could tip us into the same barbarism we see in the worst regimes.
The ‘full story’ being reported this evening is that it is a police bullet that lodged in the policeman’s radio. Even if Duggan’s gun was discharged, were the police right to shoot him? There is evidently quite a few who think strongly that Duggan did not deserve to die. The BBC will to tread even more carefully now.
Well that, of course, is for the IPCC investigation to determine. Thinking strongly about something is not really a reason to go on the rampage, is it?