London Riots

I'm sure the whole world has now seen the images of London burning.

Having lived in London since 2001, I would like to tell the world (well all those who are reading) that this is not the London we know and love.

The rioters are a minority who are rioting, looting and setting fire to homes, shops and offices, for no particular reason. There is no agenda here. The first riots are said to have been triggered by the death of Mark Duggan, allegedly by police officers, but that started off as a peaceful protest. At some point a group of thugs decided to take it too far and then other group of mindless copycats followed them.

I can not believe the scenes I have seen; groups of kids, some very young, breaking into local independent shops as well as the big chains and taking everything. From the clothes in department stores to alcohol, rice and crisps (yes crisps) in grocery stores. They have also robbed and mugged people in the streets and in restaurants and looted charity shops.

I have copied extracts from Wikipedia below that detail what defines a human being

Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. Other higher-level thought processes of humans, such as self-awareness, rationality, and sapience,^[7][8][9] are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a "person".

From this definition alone, I can not call these mindless thugs 'human'. They don't deserve the title.

This also makes them harder to deal with, they aren't threatened by punishment; they don't respect their parents or the police; they have no regard for others. They don't operate or have the same emotions and feelings that the rest of us do.

To me, they are either evil or stupid. Calling them evil gives them a level of intelligence that these actions would demand if they were for some evil purpose. I propose instead that they are moronic individuals who do not know what they are doing and whose brains can not comprehend the effect of their actions. Either that or they do know, but don't have any empathy or consideration within them to see what they are doing.

I can imagine how a young impressionable child could get pulled into this and could take things from a looted shop to be part of a gang and fit in etc, by the way I am in no way condoning it but thinking of why they do it from a psychological point of view, but what I can not understand in any way is why you would then set that shop alight. That shop that has people's homes above it.


There are a lot of CCTV pictures of the offenders. I implore every Londoner to look at these and if you recognise anyone then report them. There are leaflets going round the gangs about protecting themselves and avoiding being recognised in the pictures and to avoid prosecution.

So, as well as the amazing clean-ups that Londoners are coming together for, we also need to come together to identify these people and bring them to justice and restore the city we all love.

Sleep well London, and stay safe.