London wakes up to aftermath of worst riots for years

London picked itself up on Sunday from some of the worst violence seen in the British capital for years which politicians and police blamed on criminal thugs but residents attributed to local tensions and anger over rising financial hardship. Rioters throwing petrol bombs rampaged overnight through an economically deprived district, setting police patrol cars, buildings and a double-decker bus on fire. Police said 26 officers were injured as rioters bombarded them with missiles and bottles, looted buildings including banks, shops and council offices, and torched three patrol cars near Tottenham police station in north London. The riots erupted after a street protest over the fatal shooting of a man by armed officers this week turned violent. Residents said they were forced to flee their homes to escape the trouble as mounted police and riot officers on foot charged the crowd to push rioters back. As day broke, the Metropolitan Police, which will handle next year's London Olympic Games in what is expected to be Britain's biggest peacetime operation, faced questions about how the trouble had been allowed to escalate. The disturbance was only finally brought under control on Sunday after hours of sporadic clashes. Buildings were still smouldering, bricks littered the roads and burglar alarms continued to ring out. At a nearby retail park, electrical stores and mobile phone shops had been ransacked, with boxes for large plasma televisions discarded outside, along with CDs and glass from smashed windows. "They have taken almost everything," said Saad Kamal, 27, branch manager of retailer JD Sports. "Whatever is left is damaged." Local member of parliament David Lammy and police chiefs appealed for calm. "This must stop," Lammy told reporters, saying they did not know if everyone had escaped flats above shops that were gutted by fire. "A community that was already hurting has now had the heart ripped out of it." The trouble broke out on Saturday night following a peaceful demonstration over the shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, who was killed after an exchange of gunfire with police on Thursday. Duggan's death is now being investigated by the independent police watchdog. The riots also come amid deepening gloom in Britain, with the economy struggling to grow amid deep public spending cuts and tax rises brought into help eliminate a budget deficit which peaked at more than 10 per cent of the GDP. "Tottenham is a deprived area. Unemployment is very, very high ... they are frustrated," said Uzodinma Wigwe, 49, who was made redundant from his job as a cleaner recently. "We know we have been victimised by this government, we know we are being neglected by the government," said another middle-aged man who declined to give his name. "How can you make one million youths unemployed and expect us to sit down?" Tottenham has a large number of ethnic minorities and includes areas with the highest unemployment rates in London. It also has a history of racial tension with local young people, especially blacks, resenting police behaviour including the use of stop and search powers. The disorder was close to where one of Britain's most notorious race riots occurred in 1985, when police officer Keith Blakelock was hacked to death on the deprived Broadwater Farm housing estate during widespread disturbances.