2011 England riots
A series of riots took place between 6 and 11 August 2011 in cities and towns across England, which saw looting and arson, as well as mass deployment of police and the deaths of five people.
The protests started in Tottenham Hale, London, following the killing of Mark Duggan, a local mixed-race man who was shot dead by police on 4 August. Several violent clashes with police followed Duggan's death, along with the destruction of police vehicles, a double-decker bus and many homes and businesses, which rapidly gained the attention of the media. Overnight, looting took place in Tottenham Hale retail park and in nearby Wood Green. The following days saw similar scenes in other parts of London, with the worst rioting taking place in Hackney, Brixton, Walthamstow, Wandsworth, Peckham, Enfield, Battersea, Croydon, Ealing, Barking, Woolwich, Lewisham and East Ham.
From 8 to 11 August, other towns and cities in England faced what was described by the media as "copycat violence", with social media playing a role. By 10 August, more than 3,000 arrests had been made across England, with at least 1,984 people facing criminal charges for various offences related to the riots. Initially, courts sat for extended hours. A total of 3,443 crimes across London were linked to the disorder. as a direct result of related violent acts. An estimated £200 million worth of property damage was incurred, and local economic activity – which in many cases was already struggling due to the Great Recession – was significantly compromised.
Significant debate was generated among political, social, and academic figures about the causes and context of the riots. Attributions for the rioters' behaviour included social factors such as racial tension, class tension, economic decline and its consequent unemployment.
Police shooting of Mark Duggan
On 4 August 2011, a police officer shot dead 29-year-old Mark Duggan during an intelligence-led, targeted vehicle stop procedure on the Ferry Lane bridge next to Tottenham Hale station. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said that the planned arrest was part of Operation Trident, which at that time investigated gun crime in the Black community. The incident had been referred to the IPCC, which was standard practice if death or serious injury follows police contact.Following the shooting, the media widely reported that a bullet was found embedded in a police radio, implying that Duggan fired on the police. Friends and relatives of Duggan said that he was unarmed. The police later revealed that initial ballistics tests on the bullet recovered from the police radio indicate that it was a "very distinct" police issue hollow-point bullet. The IPCC later stated that a loaded Bruni/BBM blank-firing pistol, converted to fire live ammunition, was recovered from the scene. It was wrapped in a sock, and there was no evidence that it had been fired.
On 13 August, the IPCC stated that Duggan did not open fire: "It seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged." The bullet that had lodged in an officer's radio is believed to have been an overpenetration, having passed through Duggan's body.
At lunchtime on 6 August, a meeting was called by police between local community leaders, councillors and members of police advisory groups. In this meeting, police were warned several times that there could possibly be another riot similar to the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985 if local concerns regarding the death were not addressed.
On 8 January 2014, a coroner’s jury concluded that Duggan was lawfully killed. The verdict of lawful killing was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2017.
Protest march
On 6 August, a protest was held, initially peacefully, beginning at Broadwater Farm and finishing at Tottenham police station. The protest was organised by friends and relatives of Duggan to "demand justice" for the family. The group of some 300 people demanded that a senior local police officer come out to speak to them. When Chief Inspector Ade Adelekan arrived, he was met with boos and cries of "murderer", "Uncle Tom" and "coconut". The crowd stayed in front of the police station hours longer than they originally planned because they were not satisfied with the seniority of the officers available at the time. Rumours that a 16-year-old girl had sustained injuries after attacking police with a champagne bottle began circulating on social media. To date, the girl remains unidentified and the report unconfirmed. However, the rumour alone was sufficient to further fuel tensions in the area.Riots
The peaceful march on the morning of Saturday 6 August in Tottenham was followed by rioting and looting, first in Tottenham and later in Tottenham Hale Retail Park. Rioting occurred shortly after about 120 people marched from the Broadwater Farm estate to Tottenham Police Station via the High Road.The spread of news and rumours about the previous evening's disturbances in Tottenham sparked riots during the night of Sunday 7 August in the London districts of Brixton, Enfield, Islington and Wood Green and in Oxford Circus in the centre of London.
In the evening of Monday 8 August, many areas of London were affected by widespread looting, arson and violence. There were significant outbreaks in parts of Battersea, Brixton, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, East Ham, Hackney, Harrow, Lewisham, Peckham, Stratford, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Woolwich, and Wood Green. A man was found shot in Croydon and died later in hospital. Another man who had been assaulted in Ealing died in hospital on Thursday 11 August.
Similar riots were reported outside London – most notably in Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, and Bristol. There were reports of unrest on a smaller scale in other parts of the country, including Gillingham and Derby.
Following a greatly increased police presence, London was quiet on Tuesday 9 August, but rioting continued in Nottingham and Birmingham and spread to Leicester, parts of the West Midlands and to parts of Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the north-west of England. On 10 August, London remained quiet while hundreds of arrests were being made by the police.
Three men were killed in Birmingham in a hit-and-run incident related to the disturbances. Looting and violence continued in two locations around Manchester and Liverpool.
Social media
The existence of social media made the 2011 riots unparalleled to any before them in terms of the speed at which issues managed to spread and at which rioters were able to mobilise and organise. Many used sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote and advertise sites for looting and disorder. As a result, many online organisers were handed severe sentences for their roles in the violence.Throughout the rioting, many of the rioters failed to cover their faces. Some posed for pictures with stolen goods, posting them on social networking sites.
Although London employs CCTV cameras to monitor crime and large events, reports indicate that citizen footage contributed more to capturing looters in action than the police force. Beyond the CCTV, looters were filmed and photographed with their faces visible. Police forces and investigators used websites like Flickr to find galleries of the looters to help solve and prevent cases of vandalism and further damage. Facebook pages were also created to identify looters.
Several interactive maps were implemented in the Google Maps website that showed satellite views of what was happening in the streets during the rioting. James Cridland, the managing director of the free media resources, created a Google Map that tracked verified locations of rioting.
Channel 4 News had similar maps that progressively tracked the damage in the streets as well. The Guardian created both a map and a dataset of events of the riots News channels also were able to utilise this public service to capture live footage on the streets and inform citizens of dangerous or crowded areas.
BlackBerry Messenger
There were reports that the BlackBerry Messenger service was used by looters to organise their activities, and that inflammatory and inaccurate accounts of Mark Duggan's killing on social media sites may have incited disturbances. One of the many messages shared between users was the following:"Everyone in edmonton enfield wood green everywhere in north link up at enfield town station at 4 o clock sharp!!!!," it began. "Start leaving ur yards n linking up with your niggas. Fuck da feds, bring your ballys and your bags trollys, cars vans, hammers the lot!!"
Research in Motion assisted British police in tracking rioters who used BBM, stating, "We comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces."
Increased connectivity among individuals led to a greater ability to organise and execute massive gatherings.
On Radio 4, a police official said social media was used to "organize greed and criminality." The Daily Telegraph described Twitter as being an outlet for promoting gang violence. Evidence shows that Twitter is powerful because tweets of individuals were inspired by news content. However, an article in Time magazine suggested that BlackBerry Messenger was more to blame.
During the riots, Twitter accounted for four out of every 170 UK Internet visits on Monday 8 August. In addition, citizens also used Twitter to band together, after the destruction with hashtags including "#riotcleanup". Evidence shows that people were tweeting and re-tweeting news related to the riots, not original content.