LONDON (Reuters) – Violence flared in English cities and towns on Tuesday night but London, where thousands of extra police had been deployed, was largely peaceful after three turbulent nights in which youths rampaged across the capital virtually unchecked.
Groups of youths in hooded tops fought running battles with police in Manchester in northwest England, smashing windows and looting shops. A clothes shop was set alight.
In Salford, greater Manchester, rioters threw bricks at police and set fire to buildings. A BBC cameraman was attacked. Television pictures showed flames leaping from shops and cars, and plumes of thick black smoke billowing across roads.
“Over the past few hours, Greater Manchester Police has been faced with extraordinary levels of violence from groups of criminals intent on committing widespread disorder,” Assistant Chief Constable Gary Shewan said.
“These people have nothing to protest against – there is no sense of injustice or any spark that has led to this. It is, pure and simple, acts of criminal behavior which are the worst I have seen on this scale.”
Further south in West Bromwich and Wolverhampton, cars were burned and stores raided. A police station was firebombed by 30 to 40 males in Nottingham. No one was injured, police said.
In Liverpool’s Toxteth district, rioters set fire to two fire engines and a fire officer’s car, police said. Earlier, some 200 youths throwing missiles wrecked and looted shops, causing ‘disorder and damage’, police said.
Police said they had arrested 47 people in Manchester and Salford, and 37 in Toxteth. There were reports of minor disturbances in Birmingham and Leicester, in the Midlands, Milton Keynes north of London, and Gloucester in the southwest.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com
