By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
August 9, 2011 – 3:00PM BST (GMT)
LONDON – After three days of continuous rioting, looting and violence in pockets of the UK that has already claimed millions in property damage, public service costs and some lives – criminals are now issuing street leaflets discouraging culprits and witnesses from coming forward regarding crimes undertaken by youths.
This is one of a number of disturbing new trends that has reared its ugly head since Saturday night’s initial unrest began in Tottenham North London, which soon turned into “Retail Rioting” in South London, as youths between the ages of 12 and 20 years old took to the streets in search of take-away retail prizes. The result was city-wide mass violence, looting, theft and arson not seen before on this scale.
It seems that lawlessness knows no bounds, as this shocking leaflet appeared today:
DON’T TALK: Criminal issued leaflets on the streets of London are telling culprits to keep a low profile to avoid detection by authorities.
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Police are currently combing through thousands of CCTV still images and video footage in an effort to ‘name and shame’ youths embedded in their urdan communities, and hoping to track down vandals who participated in the mass social unrest which has plagued urban areas in London and other areas of the UK this week.
In response to this, shadowy criminal advocates have printed flyers in an attempt to reassure thousands of culprits not to come forward to police even if their digital portraits are show in the media.
On one level, criminals have exposed to oxymoron of the CCTV camera, in that police do not have the manpower or stable of analysts needed to go through and follow-up on so many CCTV leads.
In a bid to out smart the authorities, the flyer is telling looters to “lay low”, “delete dodgy texts”, “change your haircut” and “be careful who you speak to about what happened”.
501 RIOT: A Hackney youth inspects his big prize after a gang raid on clothing store (Photo: by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
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This level of organisation, normally reserved for political activists and ideological anarchist activities, is a new trend whereby criminals and looters are employing dissemination of advocacy information for the purpose of protecting participants in one of the worst criminal mass demonstrations in modern UK history.
Similar disturbing revelations will no doubt come to light as this story unfolds in the coming days and weeks.
Already authorities are keen to sequester Twitter account details and Blackberry network server logs for BBM texts, in an attempt to catch those involved in propagating and organising retails raids and arson.
What is almost certain is that the actions of these thousands of youths over the last few days will be used to justify further encroachments on every citizen’s rights and privacy in the name of preventing crime. In addition to this, recent events will also push up the price of goods and services, as businesses will not be allowed to operate licensed premises without addition security features and additional insurance.
And as if the timing could not have been worse, amid austerity measures and state budget cuts, public services are, and will be, overstretched in cost, logistical capacity and manpower in order to deal with social unrest on this scale.
All these negative results of public unrest are of course, a massive “own-goal” on the part of teen-aged criminals and unemployed rioters, who are themselves cash-strapped and unemployed, and naturally they will each be dependent on the state for benefits and social security. Unfortunately for some, many of those participating in the riots will be queueing up at the DSS Job Centre tomorrow morning in hopes of collecting their free fortnightly government allowance.
Sadly, because of this event, even fewer of the disaffected youth are likely to be interested in their “society” anymore, much less their futures. However, it might also motivate others to help improve their local community.
Watch this space.
READ MORE LONDON RIOT NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire London Riot Files
