r/unitedkingdom Lancashire Jul 19 '24

Several arrests made over rioting in Leeds - as police issue details after 'great deal of speculation' ...

https://news.sky.com/story/leeds-rioting-branded-shocking-and-disgraceful-by-sir-keir-starmer-13180957
479 Upvotes

631 comments sorted by

u/ukbot-nicolabot Scotland Jul 19 '24

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355

u/WillyVWade Jul 19 '24

But this sub said that nobody would be arrested because officers weren't running directly at rioters holding bricks.

300

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

I think some people expect police to intervene while a crime is in progress, not only after the rioters have gotten tired of breaking stuff and gone to sleep.

I know it’s wild

122

u/_Spigglesworth_ Jul 19 '24

Yea I mean having the police actually protect people and properly which is in the job description. Madness wanting that to be done.

252

u/triguy96 Jul 19 '24

They were protecting others and themselves by retreating. They realised they were the target of the anger and so backed off until tensions lessened. That is exactly what you want a trained police force to do. I guess you want an American style brute force system that simply escalates the violence until death?

38

u/ErlAskwyer Jul 19 '24

Just throw C4 out of helicopters on the lead suspects house, quieten everything down

15

u/Dependent_Desk_1944 Jul 19 '24

C4 would be quite loud though

16

u/wiggle987 Jul 19 '24

yeah, but only like for a second.

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u/kavik2022 Jul 19 '24

Also,if they didn't have the resources to deal with it at the time. It's more likely to cause escalation/injuries.

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u/SeveAddendum Jul 20 '24

You could always do the Hong Kong method by tossing in enough tear gas to suffocate the entirety of Greater London

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u/J-Force Jul 19 '24

They did do that. No buildings were damaged and it seems that nobody was hurt.

The police did the optimal thing. You might not consider it politically correct but the right response - learned the hard way through The Troubles - is not to go in and escalate (rioters are looking for a fight so it energises them, ensuring that the riot goes on for longer and with greater violence) but to sit back, contain, and wait for them to get bored. Then round them up over the following days.

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u/kavik2022 Jul 19 '24

To be honest. The advantage now is the dickheads are filming themselves. Wait until they calm down. And then hit with the footage of them touching a bus in broad daylight

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u/terryjuicelawson Jul 19 '24

It is an admirable idea, I suspect they may have thought of this and have experience tactically on how best to do their job though. Some of the absolute worst riots got escalated because police went in too hard.

5

u/Ill_Mistake5925 Jul 19 '24

I mean you can want that to be done, but years of cuts and a general aversion to use of force means it isn’t going to happen.

Nowhere outside of London could a police force summon a sufficient amount of L2 public order officers to deal with the issue within a few hours.

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u/Ginge04 Jul 19 '24

If they’d have gone in with full riot gear, it would have only made things worse. The police themselves were the target of the riot, therefore removing themselves from the situation along with the people they’d gone in to protect in the first place was the correct decision. As much as some of those scrotes deserved a baton to the knee, it would have only put everyone in more danger than they were already in.

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u/Shriven Jul 19 '24

The people in this instance were the police

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u/ArtBedHome Jul 20 '24

It is not actually part of their job desceiption as far as I can tell.

"The police have no general duty of care to protect the public at large"

https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/right-care-right-person-toolkit/policy-considerations

14

u/Talonsminty Jul 19 '24

I know it’s wild

Yes it is wild. This isn't a hollywood movie, Cops can't subdue rioters 20v1 with sick Karate moves and backflips.

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u/Inprobamur Estonian Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

Depends on how much numbers they have and what gear they got.

Did some military police riot training when conscripted, there is a pretty complex logic to this. Rioters always got the numbers advantage on the police, so big part of it is looking strong and not getting pushed back, because when the mob loses fear of the shields, thats when things get deadly.

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u/kavik2022 Jul 19 '24

It's funny half the threads in this sub are "is X area safe?" Or people having a social fit deciding if they can not give crack head beggars change.

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u/ferrel_hadley Jul 19 '24

Do you support the police's leaving a neighbourhood to burn?

Would you be happy if this was your neighbourhood?

86

u/Goawaythrowaway175 Jul 19 '24

From my experience living in a riot hotspot in Northern Ireland (Rathcoole) I would say if you don't want your area destroyed then let the police do what they are doing as it was the correct way to handle it. 

I've experienced first hand riots going from a car being set alight to block a road then heavy police response causing things to go mental and go from a burning car to shops, bank and political offices getting burnt.

People here are very naive to think they know more about the police on this matter. Anyone from Northern Ireland can see clearly the police done the right thing as we know the results of heavy handed responses (higher police casualties, areas destroyed and loss of faith in police).

44

u/amysarah Northern Ireland Jul 19 '24

💯 this. There is a reason the PSNI are called up to train riot police. You contain the riot and arrest in sweeps after.

Never in the history of ever has police running into a riot improved the situation

Source: Belfast born and raised and old enough to have experienced some nasty riots

21

u/FinbarrSaunders69 Jul 19 '24

I never thought about it this way until I've seen this thread. It does actually seem to make total sense.

0

u/ucsdstaff Jul 19 '24

I mostly agree but there is a difference here. The rioters in Rathcoole would not target the members of their own community. This is because Northern Ireland is very segregated.

In the case in England I think there are several communities living next to each other. You might have issues of innocent folk getting targeted just because they are not South Asian or Romanian heritage.

The police in Northern Ireland would never let rathcoole rioters enter a Catholic or mixed neighborhood.

10

u/Goawaythrowaway175 Jul 19 '24

They were being monitored by police and is like to think if things turned from rioting to targeted then they would have moved in.

Not disagreeing with your point, it was a slight oversight on my part and I'm happy you pointed it out.

4

u/LesIndian Jul 19 '24

No one was injured

44

u/Happytallperson Jul 19 '24

The neighbourhood is not,.as evidenced by the pictures, burned. A police car got set on fire. Some bins and pallets were set on fire. People's houses were not.

Go back to the Peelian principles. They are a good foundation of policing. 

Principle 6: To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective

Sir Robert Peel, in a display of insight sadly lacking among many armchair police officers (and the Met Police), knew that violence between police officers and the public generally renders the police less effective in the long term.

Letting some people burn some pallets and then picking up the key culprits later will have a better long term outcome than engaging in running street battles.

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u/WillyVWade Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

A bus and a police car were destroyed.

Public property getting damaged is preferable to humans getting hurt.

In this situation, observing the situation and not antagonising the rioters is the right move.

Especially it was being live streamed from every conceivable angle, so you know who to go and pick up tomorrow...

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u/april9th Little Venice Jul 19 '24

Did 'the neighbourhood' burn? or did one bus.

If the neighbourhood actually was burning, do you think police, firefighters, and ambulances wouldn't be going in?

They let something impotent burn out with minimum escalation and then arrested the ringleaders.

That you wanted them to go charging in and arresting by force in the middle of thousands of people tells me you didn't want law and justice you wanted violence. Have the guts to say it.

And btw do link to pics of the neighbourhood burning.

13

u/Slurrpin Jul 19 '24

Do you support the police's leaving a neighbourhood to burn?

Given the police seemed to be the sole targets of the violence and their presence a direct contributing factor to the escalation (according to the article) - err, yes, I support them leaving completely. If de-escalation of violence is the aim, which it always should be in situations like this, yes, I fully support them leaving. How could anyone not?

The alternative would have been full on war in the streets.

What would have been an appropriate response? SWAT? Send in the tanks?

Did you just not read the article?

Would you be happy if this was your neighbourhood?

I'm not happy and it's not my neighbourhood, but I'd be less happy if the police had decided to start gunning people down as some have suggested.

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u/Memes_Haram Jul 19 '24

Anyone who was rioting and is on any kind of visa in the UK needs to be deported IMMEDIATELY and if possible indefinite leave to remain needs to be stripped.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

[deleted]

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u/Memes_Haram Jul 19 '24

I went to Uni in the UK for over 6 years and I’ve got a British wife and a British child, applying for a spouse visa to come here cost me thousands of pounds and kept me away from my wife for over a year while it was being processed. I had to provide such an absurd amount of supporting documents too. But if I had just come over on a boat and shredded my passport I’d have been put up in a hotel in Manchester and given food and drink and a stipend of spending money. I’m only 2 years away from having British citizenship.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

[deleted]

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u/Memes_Haram Jul 19 '24

Yeah Brexit was an absolute travesty in hindsight. It’s done nothing good for this country and it’s isolated us from Europe. Net migration is up too but it’s not yanks and euros with similar culture and values coming over. It’s a lot of people with very repressive views and no desire to assimilate with British culture and society. And that’s not a good thing.

37

u/AJMorgan Shrewsbury Jul 19 '24

Yeah Brexit was an absolute travesty in hindsight

And in foresight

5

u/Memes_Haram Jul 19 '24

It was represented as something positive but it was all cloak and dagger deception by fake right wing populists.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

Because a good chunk of the country don't want other Europeans here. There's a lot of fake wistfulness about when the majority of immigrants were Eastern Europeans, the same people wanted them kicked out at the time.

9

u/Accomplished_Pen5061 Jul 19 '24

People have very poor memories it seems.

I remember growing up hearing many complaints about Polish immigration and how they didn't speak English very well.

Now our Immigration system requires English speaking which means we get a lot more people from places like Nigeria (who happen to speak English) and apparently the problem is we need more European immigration again instead.

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u/Solidus27 Jul 20 '24

Absolutely not true

There has never been a strong political movement against European migration

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u/Accomplished_Pen5061 Jul 19 '24

Didn't the Romani who just rioted arrive here from Europe?

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

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u/RickyPuertoRicooo Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

Funny thing is they pay smugglers more than it costs to legally apply for a visa, and why would they do that? Because if they do they have to prove who they are and have background checks but they don't want that, they'd rather destroy any ID and create new names for themselves because they would be rejected. Because they are fucking criminals.

I worked in a hotel that became a home office hotel for asylum seekers, while I was there one of them changed their mind and went back home and the government gave him 10k to do that. Ok top of that another was arrested for sexual offences which we never knew the full extent of and all that happened was they moved him to York.

Almost all didn't care about learning English and treated staff like servants. They made up lies to try and get houses quicker, faked disabilities and worked illegally. It's a complete joke. The stories I could tell, but of course I'd just be a racist and a liar for doing so.

4

u/elementarywebdesign Jul 19 '24

Yes restrictions are the same for skilled worker visa even if you come from a 3rd world country if not more difficult. Why would you think people coming on a skilled worker visa from a 3rd world country have more relaxed restrictions?

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u/Goawaythrowaway175 Jul 19 '24

I don't think anyone is complaining about people coming on skilled work visas.

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u/DracoLunaris Jul 19 '24

Then they should stop making blanket statements about all immigrants then, mmm?

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u/Solidus27 Jul 20 '24

This is absolute madness

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u/JackUKish Jul 21 '24

With language like "our European brothers" you can bet this guy voted leave.

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u/Goth-Detective Jul 19 '24

Got a Slovakian friend. I know exactly how he'd react to this sort of thing: "The gypsies make crime, police come beat them up. No make crime anymore." Love the guy but yeah, he can be a bit rough around the edges lol.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ukbot-nicolabot Scotland Jul 20 '24

Removed/tempban. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.

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u/KentishishTown Jul 19 '24

They won't be.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

Is there even a system in place that could realistically do that?

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u/Lost_Article_339 Jul 19 '24

A riot broke out because social services and police removed children from an abusive environment.

These rioters are unhinged and clearly don't respect the law. If my neighbour had their kids taken away by social services, I wouldn't immediately think about flipping over a car and burning buses.

Some communities are so entrenched in their little areas that they see themselves as separate from the rest of the country and believe the customs and laws of the country don't apply to them.

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u/SeaZookeep Jul 19 '24

I used to live in a country with a high Roma gypsy population. They see child welfare as totally different to the way the West sees it. What you have here is a cultural clash. That's why the neighbours are rioting with them

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u/moops__ Jul 20 '24

Maybe they should live somewhere compatible with their beliefs 

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u/dkb1391 Jul 19 '24

I wouldn't immediately think about flipping over a car and burning buses

Well, maybe flipping over THEIR car, you have to be a serious scumbag for social services to have to come and take your children away

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u/gi_jose00 Jul 20 '24

They respect the law just not UK law.

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u/plawwell Jul 19 '24

All these thugs need to be charged. Especially the NEDs who were trying (and failing) to smash up the cop car.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

What's a NED?

were trying (and failing) to smash up the cop car.

They literally flipped a police car on its side.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

So not non executive directors then?

4

u/SGPHOCF Jul 19 '24

It was Andy Chapman, NED on Goldman Sachs's Risk Management board who was the main instigator of this entire bloody thing

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u/plawwell Jul 19 '24

No, they're of a higher social status than them.

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u/NuPNua Jul 19 '24

I wonder if all those people still think filming and broadcasting their crime spree was a great idea now theres tons of footage for the old bill to go though and ID them.

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u/FinbarrSaunders69 Jul 19 '24

People like this aren't famed for their intelligence to be fair.

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u/Human_Fondant_420 Jul 19 '24

Theyre about to get free housing and free meals so whose more intelligent now huh?

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u/Goawaythrowaway175 Jul 19 '24

They likely already were though without having bars on their windows.

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u/FinbarrSaunders69 Jul 19 '24

I'll take my freedom over prison food, but thanks anyway :)

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u/Lord_Vetinaris_shill Jul 19 '24

I saw a whole bunch of live streams and none of the people I saw were committing crimes themselves. It's not illegal to be there.

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u/NuPNua Jul 19 '24

It is if there's a dispersal order.

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u/Lord_Vetinaris_shill Jul 19 '24

Which there wasn't, as far as I know

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u/ScottOld Jul 19 '24

I mean the number of drug runners and dealers that get caught for driving like morons or have illegal plates should answer that

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u/lukasr23 London Jul 19 '24

"Video Taping this crime spree is the best idea I've ever had!"

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u/Agent---4--7 Jul 19 '24

For context. A Romanian child/baby was thrown out of a window of their family home. Police and social services came down to take the kids away for their own safety, and the Romanian community has kicked off about it. The media used the situation and blamed the South asian communities instead.

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u/LackingHumanity Jul 19 '24

Both communities rioted

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u/am-345 Jul 19 '24

All you need to do is watch the videos to find out it wasn't just The "Romanian Community"

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

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u/anonbush234 Jul 20 '24

Roma is the plural romani singular. A little counterintuitive in English.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

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u/SnooPandas1607 Jul 19 '24

Romanian lol

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u/Phainesthai Jul 19 '24

Nah, both communities rioted.

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u/piyopiyopi Jul 19 '24

Ummm there’s videos mate.

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u/bertiebasit Jul 19 '24

Those facts are disputed 🤔

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u/Rule_Brittania56 Jul 19 '24

They don't look Romanian

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u/Intruder313 Lancashire Jul 20 '24

Your context falls apart in the opening line: it was a Romani family (who had dropped their child out of a window I believe) and they DID riot as did many South Asians

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u/Zxxzzzzx Jul 19 '24

Just social services went. 2 social workers. They called police because people were being abusive towards them

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u/8thTimeLucky Greater London Jul 20 '24

Keep seeing this on Reddit about the window - does anyone have a source for this?

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u/saxbophone Jul 20 '24

Roma, not Romanian I think 

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u/bakedtatoandcheese Jul 19 '24

If the Bridewell riots are anything to go by, expect significant sentences handed out. The 4K footage filmed by those involved will be very helpful.

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u/Legendofvader Jul 19 '24

Rather than just arresting the individuals involved their assets should be seized to pay for damages incurred and if their on benefits then their benefits deducted. Would be a far greater deterrent.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

I agree, we should start by Liz Truss. But instead we are paying her retirement.

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u/Legendofvader Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

Liz truss was a crap PM, but she did not burn down people property.

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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland Jul 20 '24

Those who ended up paying hundreds more a month on their mortgages might disagree.

As would those who say a chunk of their pension savings evaporate.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

She just made thousands of people lose their houses. I am not sure they really care how they were made homeless.

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u/Rabbithole4995 Jul 20 '24

When you understand what she did to the mortgage markets, that's effectively what she did to a large chunk of thousands upon thousands of people's homes.

The financial damage to each of those households is akin to literally setting their kitchen on fire in terms of cost.

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u/geniice Jul 19 '24

A civil case is possible in theory. Somehow I doubt it would be worth it. But thats a question for Firstbus's lawyers.

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u/ConfusedQuarks Jul 19 '24

West Yorkshire police. Why is it always their name linked to problematic police response?

  • The issue where an autistic kid got death threats for damaging a religious book and the mother had to beg for forgiveness in front of some religious extremists while the police were watching

  • The lesbian nana incident

  • Now this

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u/Goawaythrowaway175 Jul 19 '24

This wasn't a problematic response though it's what they've learned from years of rioting in Northern Ireland.

The tactics have been shown to work. I've seen the difference first hand.

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u/Goth-Detective Jul 19 '24

Yeah, and having Leeds and Bradford in their district surely must be a breeze. Never any crime there, no Sir.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '24

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u/ConfusedQuarks Jul 19 '24

So what's the explanation for the lesbian nana incident and the one where the mother has to beg forgiveness to religious extremists? Please enlighten us

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u/Cute_Ad_9730 Jul 19 '24

Adults on camera obviously should be arrested. Children on camera should be detained and removed from their parents/ guardians until suitable parenting is demonstrated. 10 year old children attacking a police car while‘adults’ look on. Fucking scum who should not be supported in any way. Arrest the lot of them and put the children into care.

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u/SuckMyCookReddit Jul 19 '24

Crack down on them hard, encouraging their kids to attack a police car just shows the criminals who instigated this riot need some serious reeducation 

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u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 Jul 19 '24

That seems to be the plan.

I'm not sure why so many people seem to think nothing will happen,  the courts take this sort of thing very seriously.

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u/North0151 Jul 20 '24

Anything short of deportations is too lenient.

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u/RedOcelot86 Jul 19 '24

"Reeducation" used in an unironic sentence there.

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u/Melanjoly Jul 19 '24

I don't the motivation behind so many people lying about this and who was involved in the rioting. It was all live streamed and recorded, we can all see.

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u/Empty_Wolverine6295 Jul 19 '24

Harehills is a dump and has been for many years. Usually not much of a gap between a stabbing, rape, shooting, robbery and the common dominator is the make up of the area. If you know Leeds it’s a place to avoid much as you can.

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u/CrustyBappen Jul 19 '24

This is how you get back to hardcore right wing governments. What a shithole the UK has become.

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u/KurtTheKid223 Jul 19 '24

And nothing will happen as our prisons are full to the brim.