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By JILL LAWLESS and DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press


      LONDON (AP) — Britons swept up, patched up and feared further
violence Tuesday, demanding police do more to protect them after
three nights of rioting left looted stores, torched cars and
blackened buildings across London and several other U.K. cities.


      Police said they were working full-tilt, but found themselves
under attack - from rioters roaming the streets, from a scared and
worried public, and from politicians whose cost-cutting is
squeezing police numbers ahead of next year's Olympic Games.


      London's Metropolitan Police force vowed an unprecedented
operation to stop more rioting, flooding the streets Tuesday with
16,000 officers, nearly three times Monday's total.


      Although the riots started Saturday with a protest over a police
shooting, they have morphed into a general lawlessness that police
have struggled to halt with ordinary tactics. Police in Britain
generally avoid tear gas, water cannons or other strong-arm riot
measures. Many shops targeted by looters had goods that youths
would want anyway - sneakers, bikes, electronics, leather goods -
while other buildings were torched apparently just for the fun of
seeing something burn.


      Police said plastic bullets were "one of the tactics" being
considered to stop the looting. The bullets were common in Northern
Ireland durings its years of unrest but have never before been used
in mainland Britain.


      But police acknowledged they could not guarantee there would be
no more violence. Stores, offices and nursery schools in several
parts of London closed early amid fears of fresh rioting Tuesday
night.


      "We have lots of information to suggest that there may be
similar disturbances tonight," Commander Simon Foy told the BBC.
"That's exactly the reason why the Met (police force) has chosen
to now actually really 'up the game' and put a significant number
of officers on the streets."


      The riots and looting caused heartache for Londoners whose
businesses and homes were torched or looted, and a crisis for
police and politicians already staggering from a spluttering
economy and a scandal over illegal phone hacking by a tabloid
newspaper that has dragged in senior politicians and police.


      "The public wanted to see tough action. They wanted to see it
sooner and there is a degree of frustration," said Andrew Silke,
head of criminology at the University of East London.


      London's beleaguered police force called the violence the worst
in memory, noting they received more than 20,000 emergency calls on
Monday - four times the normal number. Scotland Yard has called in
reinforcements from around the country and asked all volunteer
special constables to report for duty.


      Police launched a murder inquiry after a man found with a
gunshot wound during riots in the south London suburb of Croydon
died of his injuries Tuesday. Police said 44 officers and 14
members of the public were hurt, including a man in his 60s with
life-threatening injuries.


      So far over 560 people have been arrested in London and over 100
charged, and the capital's prison cells were overflowing. Several
dozen more were arrested in other cities.


      Prime Minister David Cameron - who cut short a holiday in Italy
to deal with the crisis - recalled Parliament from its summer
recess for an emergency debate on the riots and looting that have
spread from the deprived London neighborhood of Tottenham to
districts across the capital, and the cities of Birmingham,
Liverpool and Bristol.


      Cameron described the scenes of burning buildings and smashed
windows as "sickening," but refrained from tougher measures such
as calling in the military to help police restore order.


      "People should be in no doubt that we will do everything
necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and to make them
safe for the law-abiding," Cameron told reporters after a crisis
meeting at his Downing Street office.


      Parliament will return to duty on Thursday, as the political
fallout from the rampage takes hold. The crisis is a major test for
Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government.


      A soccer match scheduled for Wednesday between England and the
Netherlands at London's Wembley stadium was canceled to free up
police officers for riot duty.


      A wave of violence and looting raged across London on Monday
night, as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst
unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s. Groups
of young people rampaged for a third straight night, setting
buildings, vehicles and garbage dumps alight, looting stores and
pelting police officers with bottles and fireworks.

      Rioters, able to move quickly and regroup to avoid the police,
were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods,
plundering stores at will.


      Silke said until police were seen arresting large numbers of
rioters, it will be hard to control the rioting.

      "People are seeing images of lines of police literally running
away from rioters," he said. "For young people that is incredibly
empowering. They are breaking the rules, they are getting away with
it, no one is able to stop them."


      Politicians visited riot sites Tuesday - but for many residents
it was too little, too late.


      Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was booed by crowds who shouted
"Go home!" during a walkabout in Birmingham, while London mayor
Boris Johnson - who flew back overnight from his summer vacation -
was heckled on a shattered shopping street in Clapham, south
London.


      Johnson said the riots would not stop London "welcoming the
world to our city" for the Olympics.


      "We have time in the next 12 months to rebuild, to repair the
damage that has been done," he said. "I'm not saying it will be
done overnight, but this is what we are going to do."


      Violence first broke out late Saturday in the low-income,
multiethnic district of Tottenham in north London, after a protest
against the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old
father of four who was gunned down in disputed circumstances
Thursday.


      Police said Duggan was shot dead when officers from Operation
Trident - the unit that investigates gun crime in the black
community - stopped a cab he was riding in.


      The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is
investigating the shooting, said a "non-police firearm" was
recovered at the scene. But the Guardian newspaper reported that a
bullet in the officer's radio was police-issue, indicating Duggan
may not have fired at the officer.


      An inquest into Duggan's death was opened Tuesday, though it
will likely be several months before a full hearing.


      Duggan's death stirred memories of the bad old days of the
1980s, when many black Londoners felt they were disproportionately
stopped and searched by police. The frustration erupted in violent
riots in 1985.


      Relations have improved since then but tensions remain, and many
young people of all races mistrust the police.


      Others pointed to rising social tensions in Britain as the
government slashes 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) from public
spending by 2015 to reduce the huge deficit, swollen after the
country spent billions bailing out its foundering banks.


      Many rioters appeared to relish the opportunity for violence.
"Come join the fun!" shouted one youth as looters hit the east
London suburb of Hackney.


      In Hackney, one of the boroughs hosting next year's Olympics,
hundreds of youths left a trail of burning trash and shattered
glass. Looters ransacked a convenience store, filling plastic
shopping bags with alcohol, cigarettes, candy and toilet paper.


      Disorder flared throughout the night, from gritty suburbs along
the capital's fringes to west London's posh Notting Hill
neighborhood.


      In Croydon, fire gutted a 140-year-old family run department
store, House of Reeves, and forced nearby homes to be evacuated.


      "I'm the fifth generation to run this place," said owner
Graham Reeves, 52. "I have two daughters. They would have been he
sixth.


      "No one's stolen anything," he said. "They just burnt it
down."


      In the Clapham Junction area of south London, a mob stole masks
from a party store to disguise their identities and then set the
building on fire. In nearby Peckham, a building and a bus were set
ablaze. Cars were torched in nearby Lewisham, and in west London's
Ealing suburb the windows of each store along entire streets had
been smashed.


      A blaze gutted a Sony Corp. distribution center in north London,
damaging DVDs and other products, and about 100 young people
clashed with police in north London around Camden.


      "We locked all the doors, and my wife even packed a bag to
flee," said 27-year-old Camden resident Simon Dance. "We had
Twitter rolling until midnight just to keep up with the news. We
were too afraid to even look out the window."


      Outside London, dozens of people attacked shops in Birmingham's
main retail district, and clashed with police in Liverpool and
Bristol.


      On Tuesday, as Londoners emerged with brooms to help sweep the
streets of broken glass, many called for police to use water
cannons, tear gas or rubber bullets to disperse rioters, or bring
out the military for support. Although security forces in Northern
Ireland regularly use all those methods, they have not been seen on
the mainland in decades.


      Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer said that policy should be
reconsidered.


      "They should have the tools available and they should use them
if the commander on the ground thinks it's necessary," he said.


      But the government rejected the calls, for now.


      "The way we police in Britain is not through use of water
cannon," Home Secretary Theresa May told Sky News. "The way we
police in Britain is through consent of communities."


      The riots could not have come at a worse time for police, a year
before the Olympic Games, which Scotland Yard says will be the
biggest challenge in its 182-year history.


      The government has slashed police budgets as part of its
spending cuts. A report last month by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary said the cuts - a third of which have already taken
place - will mean 16,000 fewer police officers by 2015.


      Opposition Labour lawmaker David Winnick said the government
should scrap its plan to cut police numbers.


      "I think it's absolute madness in view of what's happened over
the last few nights," he said.


      The force also is without a full-time leader after chief Paul
Stephenson quit last month amid a scandal over the ties between
senior officers and Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers, which are
being investigated for hacking phone voicemails and bribing police
for information. The force's top counterterrorism officer, John
Yates, also quit over the hacking scandal.


      Police representatives say officers are demoralized, and feel a
sense of betrayal by politicians and their leaders.


      Constable Paul Deller, a 25-year veteran working in a police
control center during Monday's violence, said the rioting was
"horrific."


      He acknowledged there were not enough officers on the streets to
stop it, but said "we gave it everything we could."


      David Stringer, Raphael Satter, Sheila Norman-Culp, Meera Selva
and Stephen Wilson contributed to this report.
      

Gallery

Disasters

Britons swept up, patched up and feared further
violence Tuesday, demanding police do more to protect them after
three nights of rioting left looted stores, torched cars and
blackened buildings across London and several other U.K. cities.

British police face public anger as riots rage

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