The battle-scarred centre of Brixton in south London was sealed off by hundreds of police last night. Sporadic fighting, looting, and arson attacks continued for the second night running. Scotland Yard said that 50 more people, 26 of them policemen, were being treated in hospital as a result of the new outbreak of violence. There had been a further 85 arrests. Earlier, home secretary Mr William Whitelaw flew to London from Cumbria for talks with Metropolitan police Commissioner, Sir David McNee.
The inquest into clashes between the police and the black community of Brixton in south London was barely under way when the area was disturbed again last night by violence.
It did not compare in intensity with the rioting of Saturday night, the worst such violence experienced in Britain, but while arguments continued over the cause of Saturday’s disturbances, with the home secretary, Mr Whitelaw, promising a full statement to the Commons today, a considerable number of black youths again began attacking the police.
As darkness fell last night about 1,000 police were drafted into Brixton, and were jeered at by roaming groups of up to 50 youths, black and white. Hundreds of people lined the streets, apparently waiting for something to happen. A police helicopter flew overhead, while police reinforcements waited in coaches. By early evening hundreds of police had assembled around the square facing Lambeth town hall. Every hundred yards resentful blacks were bickering with policemen who were moving them on.
Then pockets of trouble broke out. Bricks were thrown at police and the windows of a police bus were smashed. There were reports of cars being overturned, and some of the boards fitted over shop windows shattered the night before were torn down. About two dozen mounted police charged a group of white skinheads who had gathered at the back of Brixton police station. One 13-year-old boy was beaten over the head and shoulders. Off Coldharbour Lane a group of youths, white and black, looted a shoe shop, clearing the entire stock, without interference from the police.
A meeting of a defence committee set up to represent youths arrested on Saturday night broke up in confusion after a fracas involving police and youths outside the meeting place, the Melting Pot Foundation, in the heart of Brixton.
The police station was heavily barricaded, with mounted police waiting behind the barricade. There was a running clash between police and young blacks at about 6.15. Bottles and bricks were thrown, and the police produced their riot shields and made a baton charge.
After five hours of sporadic rioting, police largely succeeded in breaking up the crowds and clearing the main roads. Trouble flared in fringe areas of Brixton as the main trouble-spots in the so-called frontline area were cleared but by 10.30 last night a tense calm had returned to the whole area. Last night police indicated that they intended to maintain their blanket coverage of Brixton in spite of protests.
Mr Whitelaw flew to London from his Cumbria constituency yesterday for talks with the police commissioner, Sir David McNee. Before the rioting broke out again they visited Brixton with the junior Home Office Minister Mr Timothy Raison.
Mr Whitelaw’s only detailed statement after his viewing of the scene was in praise of the police. Matters such as the cause of the disturbance and the intensity of police presence were to be fully investigated, he said, and he would be making a statement in parliament today. Sir David said “I have this message for the good people of Brixton. We will uphold and enforce the law. Brixton is not a no-go area, nor will it be.”
Local politicians and community leaders were unanimous in calling for a full inquiry into the events of the violent weekend, but the opposition spokesman on home affairs, Mr Roy Hattersley, said he would not comment until he heard the home secretary’s statement.
Mr Courtney Laws, leader of the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association, said that the, riot was “the culmination of issues of frustration, unemployment, homelessness and alienation and confrontation with the police. He went on: “What is needed now is to build a completely new Brixton, without any discrimination at all. It was a very sad day.”
Brixton’s morning after
As the debris was cleared yesterday, two writers walked and talked in the riot area. Mike Phillips is a West Indian journalist. Malcolm Dean, social policy editor of the Guardian, lives in Brixton and covered many of America’s explosive riots in the sixties.
