Three days that shook our streets…

It’s been 10 years since the shooting of Mark Duggan by police sparked a wave of rioting and looting across the country. Alexandra Warren looks back at the nights of fire and violence in South London

On Thursday, August 4, 2011, Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London while getting out of a minicab.

On the Saturday after the shooting, 300 people joined a march from the Broadwater Estate to Tottenham police station in protest.

It was largely peaceful, but later in the evening tensions grew between protestors and police and violence broke out, continuing to grow.

Rioters threw bottles at mounted police and two patrol cars were set alight. By Sunday, August 7, the rioting had spread south of the river.

In Brixton, the annual street party Brixton Splash was attended by 15,000 people. At 7pm, the event finished and by 10.30pm most partygoers had headed home. Police breathed a sigh of relief.

But shortly after 11pm, cops were called to an incident on the Moorlands Estate.

On arriving they came under attack from a group of up to 200 youths.

Police were pelted with stones and bottles by the group, some of whom were injured by the glass.

Windows of dozens of shops were broken by the vandals, including Nandos, KFC, Morleys, William Hill, Marks & Spencer and Gamesmaster.

The looters raided Foot Locker and Vodafone shops in Brixton Road.

Six fire engines and 30 firefighters were called to the shoe shop after looters torched it.

One engine from Brixton station was damaged.

Later, fire trucks from West Norwood and Edmonton stations were attacked and damaged by the mob.

The same evening, 26-year-old Trevor Ellis, from Brixton Hill, was shot in the chest while sitting in a car in Croydon. He died the next day.

In 2012, police said they believed his killers had been involved in the rioting, but no one has yet been charged with his murder.

On Monday, August 8 rioting broke out in Croydon, Clapham, Lewisham, Peckham and Woolwich.

The first reports of violence in Lewisham were at around 5.30pm when windows at McDonald’s in Lewisham High Street were smashed.

An hour later, cars in Albion Way were torched.

In Lee High Road, the Dirty South pub and Chinese takeaway shop Xin Long were looted.

On the other side of the road, windows at Lewisham East MP Heidi Alexander’s office were smashed and a laptop was stolen.

Next door, an African and Caribbean food and music store was broken into, where goods and more than £1,000 was taken.

The owner of K A Rowland Opticians in Catford, Keith Rowland, returned to his store around 6.30pm after locking up earlier in the evening.

He told the South London Press at the time: “We had to go and check everything was okay because we have the records of 30,000 people on our patient record cards and computers.

“Looters had already been and taken most of the goods.

“There were still a few people, aged 18 to 30, coming in and out the building, but I didn’t ever feel afraid of them. “One guy even asked me whether I had any Ray-Ban sunglasses left.

“I just told him to go and have a look because there was no point trying to stop him. There were too many of them.”

Elsewhere, several businesses in Deptford High Street were looted and damaged, including the William Hill betting shop, Tesco Express, Greggs and W Samuel jewellers.

In New Cross Road, New Cross, the Currys store was looted.

More than 150 young people created chaos in Battersea around Clapham Junction.

They smashed dozens of shop windows including Debenhams, Foot Locker, Starbucks and Specsavers from around 8pm and the Party Superstore fancy dress shop in Lavender Hill was set alight at around midnight.
Fires broke out in several buildings in Croydon.

By August 11, more than a thousand people across London had been arrested and 464 people had been charged.

Police pulled officers from other areas of the country, and put 16,000 cops on the streets. The rioting abated.

Reactions at the time were mixed, with some people blaming cuts to youth services and others branding the looters as thugs and opportunists.

Then Labour MP for Lewisham East Heidi Alexander said: “While there is no doubt that times are tough for certain sections of our community – youth unemployment is high and staying in education and training is becoming harder – there can be no excuse for this sort of behaviour.”

The events of the weekend appear to have been triggered by anger with the police, but ultimately these are just gangs of youths looking for a ruck.”

Alex Simpson, from Peckham, who was 21 at the time and a volunteer at a Mayhem Theatre Arts project said there were many reasons young people joined the rioting.

He told the South London Press at the time: “Some young people feel outcast from society and are saying, ‘We need help with job prospects and finding something positive to do’.

“The problem with youth services being cut is that they just end up on the streets.

“I don’t think it’s about getting their hands on free stuff.

“When someone has no aspirations they feel they have nothing to lose.”