Portrait of the week | 13 August 2011

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Parliament was recalled as rioting spread across London and to other cities. It began in Tottenham on Saturday night, two days after a black man, Mark Duggan, was shot dead by police during an attempted arrest. Friends gathered at Tottenham police station asking the truth of the incident. The Independent Police Complaints Commission later announced that ‘speculation that Mark Duggan was “assassinated” in an execution style involving a number of shots to the head are categorically untrue’. (Two days later the commission confirmed that Duggan had a loaded gun, but there was no evidence it was fired.) Rioting that night saw a double-decker bus, three police cars and several buildings burnt, notably a 1930s commercial block with 26 flats above it at 638 High Road, Tottenham. One woman made homeless, Rosie Patousa, expressed her disgust that a looter carried off rugs laughing as she fled for her life. As day broke on Sunday, looters were at work untroubled by police at Wood Green and Tottenham Hale. On the second night there was looting in Enfield and Brixton.

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On the third day, a shop at 193 Rye Lane, Peckham, was set alight and an off-licence in Hackney was looted. Many cars were set on fire. Looters co-ordinated action by BlackBerry messaging. Debenham’s at Clapham Junction and its neighbouring shops were looted, with police outnumbered by scores of looters. Woolwich High Street was looted, and 200 looters ransacked Ealing Broadway. Sony’s large warehouse was burnt down at Enfield. Lewisham, Harlesden, Islington and Catford also saw looting. In Notting Hill, diners at the Ledbury were sheltered in the cellar as robbers invaded the restaurant. In Croydon, a pawnbroker’s and a large furniture shop were burnt down, and then a row of shops and flats.