Last Saturday, whilst I was returning from a day trip to Stonehenge, somewhere in Tottenham, London, a protest over the apparent unlawful ‘killing’ aka fatal shooting of  29 year old Mark Duggan was commencing.

Before long, what was meant to be an organised and relatively peaceful demonstration disintegrated into  several nights of anarchic free-for-all as an increasing trail of mindless destruction and violent rioting spread from London to Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham.

This ‘copy cat criminal activity’, as labelled by the Police, was despicable and simply inexcusable. Shops were looted, buildings set on fire, businesses were ruined and citizens were under attack……..by other citizens!!  I mean, what is the point in all of that?!  How is this fighting for jusitice?!  How is this beastly & brutish behaviour going to solve any of the problems relating to  benefit cuts, unemployment, and inadequate housing?

Do many of these rioters even remember what the original protest was all about or are they simply operating under classic mob mentality, taking advantage of  an already unstable situation to satisfy their own materialistic greed?

The rioting slash protests, rather than trying to get a point across, has degenerated into craziness.

The Fire & Police services are all being stretched to their limits,  as they try to restore order, contain chaos and deal with acts of violence and arson on individual persons and businesses.

The economic downturn already left many independent businesses with more than enough troubles on their hands.  Many are simply trying to survive  the seemingly never-ending recession, whilst providing goods and services for their community.  They certainly do not need this.

A lot of these so called rioters are simply opportunists.  Many of them are not the ones starting the fires or smashing the windows.  Like scavenging vultures, they simply trail in after the destructive rioters and grab whatever spoils they can.

It is a major sign of a highly dysfunctional society when children as young as 7 are running wild and amock in the streets, hooded and masked.  Shouldn’t they be watching cartoons, playing with their Etch-A-Sketch or even be in bed, rather than perambulating the streets at ungodly hours of the night?!

Limiting the attacks to major businesses might  have made some sense in a David versus Goliath kind of way, but the indiscriminate attacks on both large and small shops, as well as hurting general members of the public is ridiculous, pointless and will acheive no goals, except  breed further violence and disturbance.

It is heart-wrenching to see our streets devastated and ravaged, and looking like a scene from a war-torn zone.

We are much better than this, people.  This is NOT  the answer.  There are other  more productive and legal ways to make a point and effect change.

Let’s build each other up, support those affected by these heinous crimes, reprimand the instigators, ,have a cuppa tea, put our thinking caps on and come up with better solutions for our problems.