One month after major disturbances were provoked by the August 4 police killing of Mark Duggan in north London, the Metropolitan Police in the capital are intensifying raids on working class communities.
Entire neighbourhoods have been sealed off, with riot police smashing down doors and dragging people away. So far this has resulted in over 2,000 arrests in London alone, averaging approximately 100 a day since the riots began. The media, tipped off in advance, has filmed the build-up, the actual raids and the spectacle of youth being thrown into police vans.
A police source told the Sunday Times that the police are hunting 30,000 people they say were involved in the disturbances. Nationally, 40,000 hours of CCTV footage will be examined and senior police officers are expecting the investigation to last for years.
On August 22, the Metropolitan Police issued a report claiming 3,296 crimes recorded in London. A police source said the “Met is keen to find out who all these people are.”
The Metropolitan Police, backed by the entire political establishment, have been on the rampage since the riots began. On August 11, fifty officers raided the Churchill Gardens Estate in Pimlico, Westminster. The Daily Telegraph published film footage of the raid, baying that “England's smash-and-grabbers got a dose of their own medicine today.”
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