Everything is happening today. I am not sure exactly what happened, but it sounds like the police started a riot by trying to take someones child, and then just gave up and abandoned the area for a few hours while the far right tried to organise some violence.
At 5pm, West Yorkshire police had arrived at a residential street to deal with a disturbance seemingly brought on by a row over children from a Roma family being taken into care by social services. A crowd started to gather, tensions were inflamed and the outnumbered officers were forced to retreat. They left behind a police car, which was smashed and flipped on to its side.
Within a couple of hours, riot police arrived in an attempt to control the escalating situation but witnesses said this appeared to make things worse. People – male and female, and of all races – were seen lobbing bricks and bottles at officers, hitting riot shields, as the police retreated into their vans.
Five hours after the police were first called, in the darkening evening, a doubledecker bus was ablaze, the larger of two fires raging just off Harehills Lane, which is one of the main roads through the densely populated part of the city.
The heat from the burning bus was already keeping the crowd at a distance but when loud explosions punctuated the roar of the inferno, people screamed and scattered.
Somebody was throwing gas canisters on the fire, a dangerous situation with no police around to stop them.
On social media, an altogether different furore was breaking out as far-right groups mobilised against the Muslim residents of the neighbourhood, in particular the Harehills Green party councillor Mothin Ali – who, if social media was to be believed, was complicit in the disorder.
The far-right antagonist Tommy Robinson claimed footage showed “the newly elected councillor for the area rioting tonight in Leeds. Multiple reports he’s even on the streets with them”.
In fact, Ali was seen by dozens of people earlier in the evening intervening in an attempt to calm the disorder and stop the attacks on police.
At 11pm he was at the bus fire, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, calling for the community to come together. He was flanked by other residents – Muslim men and a mix of people from different backgrounds who anxiously confronted those who were trying to amplify the chaos.
At about midnight, local residents began gathering water from nearby houses in buckets and Biffa bins to reduce the bus blaze to smouldering embers. The crowd briefly moved about 50 metres down the road and cheers could be heard as a young man, Mohammed, did backflips to entertain those gathered and defuse any remaining heat. People played music on their phones.
At 5pm, West Yorkshire police had arrived at a residential street to deal with a disturbance seemingly brought on by a row over children from a Roma family being taken into care by social services. A crowd started to gather, tensions were inflamed and the outnumbered officers were forced to retreat. They left behind a police car, which was smashed and flipped on to its side.
Within a couple of hours, riot police arrived in an attempt to control the escalating situation but witnesses said this appeared to make things worse. People – male and female, and of all races – were seen lobbing bricks and bottles at officers, hitting riot shields, as the police retreated into their vans.
Five hours after the police were first called, in the darkening evening, a doubledecker bus was ablaze, the larger of two fires raging just off Harehills Lane, which is one of the main roads through the densely populated part of the city.
The heat from the burning bus was already keeping the crowd at a distance but when loud explosions punctuated the roar of the inferno, people screamed and scattered.
Somebody was throwing gas canisters on the fire, a dangerous situation with no police around to stop them.
On social media, an altogether different furore was breaking out as far-right groups mobilised against the Muslim residents of the neighbourhood, in particular the Harehills Green party councillor Mothin Ali – who, if social media was to be believed, was complicit in the disorder.
The far-right antagonist Tommy Robinson claimed footage showed “the newly elected councillor for the area rioting tonight in Leeds. Multiple reports he’s even on the streets with them”.
In fact, Ali was seen by dozens of people earlier in the evening intervening in an attempt to calm the disorder and stop the attacks on police.
At 11pm he was at the bus fire, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, calling for the community to come together. He was flanked by other residents – Muslim men and a mix of people from different backgrounds who anxiously confronted those who were trying to amplify the chaos.
At about midnight, local residents began gathering water from nearby houses in buckets and Biffa bins to reduce the bus blaze to smouldering embers. The crowd briefly moved about 50 metres down the road and cheers could be heard as a young man, Mohammed, did backflips to entertain those gathered and defuse any remaining heat. People played music on their phones.
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