BRITISH POLICE were yesterday authorised to use water cannon and plastic bullets on rioters who have brought chaos and fear to several cities across the country.
The death of three men of Asian origin who were protecting their mosque in Birmingham has led to fears the rioting could be exacerbated by racial tensions.
Shazad Ali (31), Abdul Musavir (30) and Haroon Jahan (21) were run over by a car in the Winson Green area of Birmingham in the early hours of yesterday morning. Police are treating the incident as murder.
Mr Jahan’s father, Tariq Jahan, administered emergency resuscitation to his dying son. He appealed for calm yesterday and expressed a desire that justice would be done.
A 32-year-old man was questioned yesterday in connection with the deaths.
In his strongest condemnation to date of the rioting, British prime minister David Cameron said the violence showed a side of Britain that was “frankly sick”. “For too long there has been a lack of focus on the complete lack of respect shown by this group of thugs,” he said.
He said footage of children as young as 12 and 13 looting and laughing and others robbing an injured man on the ground showed “there are things that are badly wrong in our society”.
Mr Cameron stressed the police would have legal authority to use any tactics they needed including water cannon and plastic bullets.
He would not allow concern about human rights get in the way of the publication of CCTV pictures of the rioters. “Every contingency is being looked at. Nothing is off the table,” he said. “We needed a fightback and a fightback is under way.”
Mr Cameron will make a statement in the House of Commons today.
The coalition government is coming under increased pressure to reverse proposals to cut police numbers across the UK by 30,000 within the lifetime of the present parliament. All police leave across the UK has been cancelled as forces attempt to deploy the kind of saturation policing that worked well in London on Tuesday night.
British home secretary Theresa May ordered all police forces in England and Wales to cancel leave and adopt a “tough, robust approach”.
Six forces, in areas which experienced the worst of the rioting, requested reinforcements last night.
More than 800 have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police in London and in excess of 250 have been charged to date.
Three courts sat through the night last night to process cases. Among those charged with looting yesterday were an 11-year-old, a teaching assistant, a lifeguard and a charity worker.
Locals in the London suburbs of Enfield and Ealing took to acts of vigilantism to protect their neighbourhoods despite the advice of London mayor Boris Johnson and the police.
“What I don’t need is these so-called vigilantes who appear to have been drinking too much and taking policing resources away from what they should have been doing, which was preventing the looting,” the Metropolitan Police’s deputy assistant commissioner, Stephen Kavanagh, said.
However, London police advised business owners they could use “reasonable force” to protect themselves.
“As a general rule, the more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self-defence,” a police message said.
Trouble broke out on Saturday night in protest at the shooting dead of a black man, Mark Duggan, by armed officers in Tottenham, north London.
Trouble spread across London on Sunday and Monday and violence has been experienced in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol.
More than 1,000 rioters have been arrested across England.