I have written about criminals exploiting social unrest for their own purposes. Men and women who care little about the particular matter at issue nonetheless attach themselves to it and espouse the appropriate rhetoric. Their interest is in utilizing a protest movement or the aftermath of a catastrophic event as a vehicle for their criminality. Innumerable examples have appeared in the news – looting during natural disasters, assaults and rapes perpetrated by soldiers against civilians, torture inflicted by religious extremists. The list is endless.
While on a trip abroad, I watched a television report aired on December 10, 2011 produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The subject was the wide scale violence that spread across England late last summer. The BBC interviewed individuals who engaged in violence while joining their fellow citizens who were peaceably protesting government cutbacks and alleged misconduct by law enforcement officials. During four nights of demonstrations, 4,000 citizens were arrested, a large number but small in comparison to the thousands who did not participate in the riots but, nonetheless, demonstrated in behalf of their cause.
“Everybody united; we had a common theme,” claimed one participant in the violence. Although this may have been true, most demonstrators did not loot stores, smash windows, destroy police cars, and burn down commercial establishments resulting in the loss of livelihood for small business owners and their employees. Some rioters acknowledged crossing numerous zones of London, leaving their own neighborhoods, in search of the action. One man said he returned nine days early from vacation to participate in the excitement. Men told BBC interviewers that they experienced an “adrenaline rush” while hurling “petrol bombs,” setting fires, and rushing into stores to snatch merchandise.
“We were in control, the police were scared,” claimed one rioter. “We enjoyed it – no guilt,” declared another. The BBC noted that one third of the participants in the rioting declared they would do it all over again given the opportunity.
Included also were statements of rationalization made after the fact. One rioter commented, “We violated them (i.e., the police) because they violated us.” A comment was made indicating that the mayhem that transpired was a payback for being “hassled” in the past by police. Then it was revealed that those who claimed to have been hassled were individuals previously in trouble with the law.
A comment was made that the riots “did not happen in a political vacuum.” And that is exactly the point. There were thousands of men and women expressing grievances about the government giving them, as they saw it, “a raw deal” by decreasing benefits, including taking away education grants. As is the case with most demonstrations, people took to the streets to peaceably and legitimately make a statement. Unfortunately, those who are genuinely committed to a cause find their message submerged, sometimes lost entirely, as it is buried beneath headlines about those who commit crimes then justify them in the name of that cause.
