And I was wrong… What looked like an isolated day of looting and stupidity spilled over today as the second city was shut down, in some parts as early as 1.30 in the afternoon. Commuters, some let home from work early to beat the expected trouble and disruption, filed the long way round to their homes as riot police blocked off parts of the city centre likely to be targeted. Although nothing was happening in the city in the afternoon it was only a matter of time.
I’d tried and failed to get in amongst the crowd yesterday, catching the trouble too late. After all, why would anyone have expected riots to have spread out around the UK? As I finished my first piece about the matter, fully expecting it to end there, I fell asleep in the small hours with talk of Liverpool being next. I woke to hear trouble already starting in neighbouring Wolverhampton, West Bromwich and further up North in Manchester.
There was still no cohesive reasoning behind why it was happening, the death of Mark Duggan a distant memory, if it was ever truly connected to the second string of rioting at all. Today an IPCC investigation would reveal that he did not shoot at police but before that was even processed by the collective consciousness of the rioters, they were out on the streets selecting their next targets based not on political rationalising but on opportunism and materialistic desire.
I know all this because I was in the city centre for most of the day, watching the gangs of people congregate and trying to blend in with them. I’d earlier dressed in some get up that wouldn’t make me too conspicuous, although it was probably safe to say that my large camera around my neck gave my intentions away. Whenever asked about it I told my new friends I had looted it yesterday from a nearby Boots to seal nods of approval.
Getting into the city centre itself was difficult due to the large police presence but it was not impossible. I was able, through talking to the police, to bypass their own barricades, seemingly with their blessing, as they told me how to get to streets that should probably have been off limits. I found that by asking them where to avoid I could find out where the next wave of trouble was going to be.
I’d narrowly missed an earlier altercation near the Bull Ring that had involved 200 people armed with sticks and missiles that riot police had dispersed. The crowd had been moved away from the city’s prize shopping centre and pushed down the road towards Corporation Street, where there were a lot of small businesses and disused buildings. It also houses an indoor market. It is an area that is known for its discount clothing, it’s faux brands and also as a place where it is easy enough to score drugs of a night.
I had my suspicions about the motivations as to why the crowd had been pushed into this area, one where if any shops were looted the owners would certainly feel it more than a major chain store, but trusted that a strong police presence would prevent any looting from taking place. Getting to Corporation Street itself was a chore, having to completely circumnavigate the city centre. I arrived to see that the crowd was tearing apart the shop “Hat Man”, a small independent distributor of headware. It was completely gutted, the shop front destroyed and merchandise being scooped up in handfuls.
Metres away the police stood by and watched before deciding to move in a concentrated line that swept the crowd back. I’d only just got myself into the thick of it and the riot police looked to be moving in. Except there were no clashes, no violence on either side and no arrests were made. Again the crowd was simply pushed a few hundred metres down the road to another set of shops and the police took up a new perimeter that people could no longer walk through.
A lot has been made of the question “who is doing it”. Initially people tried to call it a race riot but this was not the work of a single community, nor was it the work of a single ethnicity. The streets were filled with many different types of people, the only way to distinguish between the participants and the rubberneckers was by whether or not they had decided to cover their face. There was an almost festival atmosphere… People drinking in the streets and the waft of marijuana in the air, yet it had to be said there was an undercurrent, that sense it could turn nasty at any time.
After a half an hour period of inactivity the crowd decided it was time to target another shop this time a Tescos Express. A young girl in a track suit put the window through and the crowd descended, smashing glass and trying to get inside. It seemed precautions had already been taken by the closed store, the alcohol and cigarettes being stripped from the shelves and makeshift barricades placed in the store. The crowd didn’t seem interested in food and instead descended into mindless vandilism all under the watchful eyes of the police who were now stood as close to the incident as I was.
Yet there was still no clash, still no decision from the police to move in and start to arrest some of the perpetrators. The crowd were now starting to become jubilant and more aggressive, openly taunting the police and jeering at onlookers, mocking their lack of involvement. Some even ripped up street cobbles and threw the bricks in the direction of police and some of the braver TV camera crews, of which I counted two.
With nothing forthcoming from the raid on the Tescos Express the next target was a newsagent across the road, one that hadn’t taken the same precautions that the larger chain had. It took a while to get though the steel and glass but the mob did it and once inside they distributed cigarettes and even cigarette papers amongst themselves, even turning to violence when people tried to pick up some of the spilled loads on the floor.
I looked to my right and saw three riot police, one of them wielding a small camcorder. They too were filming this descent into madness. Through a megaphone they shouted to the crowd that they were being filmed and that they would all be prosecuted. The crowd didn’t care, believing in such basic animal concepts as safety in numbers and that their disguises would hold true. It was likely that they were right.
I’d filmed a lot of it but my cover had been compromised. One of the groups I was talking to earlier came over to me and asked why I was filming so much and tried to take my camera. I pushed them away and turned it off before walking to a safer vantage point.
Yesterday looked like a simple outpouring of stupid rage. I didn’t believe that there was some conspiracy, ignored all the talk of agitators from London and the gangs pulling the strings behind the scenes. Today it was clear that stupid is all it was, a group of young people egging each other on to more and more drastic acts of irrational destruction in the name of no-one, with no cause to serve and nothing to be achieved. It is simply the most pointless series of “protests” I have ever seen in all my years. As angry and jaded as I am I find myself completely unable to engage with any of it.
And incredibly I come away criticising the police not for brutality but instead for a lack of action. The shops I saw destroyed were owned by local people, small businessmen who will feel the impact more than any big company. These are the same taxpayers that fund a police force and yet here they received no way of a thankyou. A few arrests would have sucked the bravado from a crowd that were simply feeding off each other, believing they were untouchable. That the arrests may come tomorrow is no consolation to the owners who will have received phone calls telling them their business was in ruins.
As I trudged away from the ever vicious crowd one of the cameramen came up to me and gave me the number for the Reuters ground crew. I took it but haven’t used it. This is my city and while I am a journalist I can’t profit from the dumb shit that has befallen us.
Let’s see if tomorrow brings any sanity.