RIOTS: Youths and police clash in battle for Chalk Farm Rd'

Published: 11 August, 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY, DAN CARRIER, JOSIE HINTON and TOM FOOT

POLICE officers have been dispatched to nearly every corner of the borough for the last two evenings in a lockdown operation aimed at preventing a repeat of rioting which left scores of shops and bars vandalised and looted on Monday night.

During nine hours of some of the worst disorder Camden has seen in recent memory, strained lines of riot police admitted they did not have “control” of areas of Camden Town and Chalk Farm until daybreak on Tuesday.

Watched first hand by three New Journal reporters, the only reporting team on the ground for an extended period, groups largely made up of teenage boys and young men smashed shop windows and threw bottles at police.

Phone shops and trendy clothing shops were hit by looting as high-value goods were ripped from the shelves.

Possibly the worst scenes came amid two major stand-offs – one in Camden Road and one in Chalk Farm Road where running pitch battles developed.

Teams of aggressors disguised in bandanas and scarves, a few in Halloween masks, marched at police shields seemingly without fear and bursting with aggression. The police appeared to hold little authority and officers only made ground with organised charges at the crowd.

Bottles and bins flew, and the lack of injuries at the end of it all seemed to be the result of good fortune and police caution.

Only 12 from the crowd were arrested as police stuck doggedly to a containment policy based on reducing risk of harm.

When police did retreat, however, shops were ferociously looted, young men and women moving in for goods like piranhas devouring meat. Teenage cheerleaders shouted words of encouragement and swore at police amid the chaos.

One of the biggest victims was Evans Cycles, looted early on in the evening with the thieves then congratulating themselves on their new frames.

Some bikes were later tracked down to nearby Prince of Wales Road, which itself had been a spot for indiscriminate destruction as youths used scaffold poles to crack car windscreens. Ostensibly, this was the spreading of rioting that began on Saturday night when a march in protest at the police shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham turned ugly.

Buildings and buses were burned in Haringey. The closest Camden got to flames was the burning of bins near Jamestown Road. The people involved did not reference Mr Duggan’s death in any way while the New Journal was on the scene. Instead, it was claimed this was “payback” for mean police treatment – a charge vehemently rejected by local police.

The level of damage did not match Croydon and Enfield, but residents and traders were still left shocked and scared.

It prompted Hampstead and Kilburn MP Glenda Jackson into strong comments that might not chime with all of her Labour colleagues.

She said: “Don’t give credence to the argument that these are deprived children, they all have Blackberries. It’s time to send in the Army and water cannons. It has all been too softly, softly so far. And where are the parents?

This is just kids having a bloody good time and it is utterly unacceptable. You don’t shit on your own doorstep. It is just disrespectful and disgusting. These kids have simply lost it. They are terribly brave as a group, but they are all bloody cowards.”

Amid the depressing stories, however, came uplifting ones too.

An internet-organised response saw 100 volunteers or so turn out to help tidy up the debris on Tuesday morning and people in Camden Town spoke of a renewed community spirit as they opened their windows again.

The business group Camden Town Unlimited met with shop and bar owners as traders resolved not to be defeated by threats of violence.

And one little story proving inspirational to those urging everyone to keep their heads up was the one told by Erdal Hazar, the shopkeeper who runs Diamond Supermarket in Haverstock Hill. He refused to sell large amounts of lighter fluid, a classic rioter’s tool, to young men who visited his shop on Monday.

Mr Hazar said: “I realised what they wanted to do with it so I said, ‘I’m not going to serve you that’. I said, ‘it'’s not a good sale for me because I know what’s going to happen’.”

There was damage in other parts of the borough: a mobile phone shop in West Hampstead had its front window smashed, a similar fate was suffered by one in Hampstead. Gay’s The Word bookshop in Marchmont Street, Bloomsbury, had its windows put in on Sunday night – its owners fearing homophobic attackers had used the excuse of riots elsewhere to strike.

Even though the most severe violence was largely confined to NW1, every other part of Camden was affected, at least indirectly, by the “lockdown” that followed.

On Tuesday night, police from Greater Manchester and Surrey were among the reinforcements. Shops were advised to close early and did so. Some went further, including Currys in Camden High Street which was fortified with a steel grill.

As rumours about the prospect of places in Hampstead being robbed in further outbreaks of violence spread across the internet, it was not just Camden Town that battened down the hatches. A sort of unofficial curfew developed across the entire borough and beyond. It became difficult to find a place to buy a late-night snack or a bottle of beer. Roads were clearer than normal, the peace broken only by distant sirens.

Police Superintendent Roger Smalley said yesterday (Wednesday) that officers would not be “complacent” amid hopes Camden’s involvement in riots across England had passed.

“Whilst we have had difficult days to come, and there could be more to follow, we move forward with a strong sense of partnership with the law-abiding population we work with and for,” he said.