UK riot: British cities looting continues

UK riot: British cities looting continues

Some British police officials trying to stop the rioters

Cases of looting have continued in some cities in UK as heavy policing in London prevented all but a few incidents in the ongoing crisis in the country.

The looting, which some analysts described as a copycat one erupted in cities and towns to the north and west.

Police report

Groups of youths in hooded tops were said to have fought running battles with police in Manchester, smashing windows and looting shops, and setting fire to a clothes shop.

In Liverpool's Toxteth district, rioters attacked two fire engines and a fire officer's car, a police official said.

"Greater Manchester Police has been faced with extraordinary levels of violence from groups of criminal intent on committing widespread disorder," Assistant Chief Constable Gary Shewan said.

"These people have nothing to protest against, there is no sense of injustice or any spark that has led to this.  It is, pure and simple, acts of criminal behaviour which are the worst I have seen on this scale." Shewan retorted.

A murder inquiry

In Birmingham, police launched a murder inquiry after three Muslim men died after being run over by a car in the mayhem there.

 A friend of the men told reporters that they had been part of a group of British Asians protecting their area from looters after attending Ramadan prayers at a mosque.

"The car swerved towards them. It was cold-blooded murder," the friend said.

Police said they had arrested 113 people in Manchester and Salford, and 50 in Liverpool.

Security beefed up

Reports had it that some 16,000 police, which was said to be 10,000 more than the number deployed on Monday were on the streets in a show of force in districts where gangs of hooded youths had operated.

The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, Stephen Kavanagh, said officers would be out in force again on Wednesday night.

"Tonight we are going to plan for the worst again, that is what London deserves," he told reporters.

It was reported that Manchester and Liverpool in the northwest and Birmingham in central England suffered the worst of the overnight violence, which broke out in north London on Saturday after a police shooting of a suspect two days earlier.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who was due to chair a second meeting of COBRA, the government's crisis committee, had to cut short a family holiday in Italy to deal with the crisis.

Cameron had described the looting as unacceptable and pointed out that the perpetrators would face the consequences of their actions.

REUTERS/Shakira/Williams