Thursday 11 August 2011

London Riots - The Forgotten Corner Of London


 The Forgotten Corner Of London
BY DANNY MERCER




AKA @MISTERMERCER - TWITTER



on monday 8th of august 2011 following rioting events in tottenham, deep in  the south east corner of london, woolwich erupted into havoc as youths started to copycat rioting and disorder that were happening in other towns and citys.

at around 8pm public disorder took a turn for the worst when anti social behavior stepped up and spread like a virus across woolwich.

over 65 shops were damaged, looted, and desroyed as teen youth decided to help themselfs to whatever they saw fit.
police were called in to restore order,  however they were drasticly out numbered by rioting thugs of all ages.


a police car was then set ablaze by the zebra crossing on the far side of woolwich market square
pictured here hours after




in the currently being refubished center point of woolwich - contrators work machinery and fencing being used to create the new olympic square became weapons of destruction. fences were torn down and used to break shop shutters , windows and as weapons against the police.

not long after midnight news spread across social networks such as FACEBOOK and TWITTER that fires broke out in the square , this news was then confirmed by a member of production company JELLYFIELDERS as he stood and filmed thugs setting fire to Woolwich's Wetherspoons "the great harry" 




london fire brigade were called however they were unable to reach the great harry as rioters pushed riot police back and fire crews refused to go in alone as they would of came under attack.


THIS..... WAS THE GREAT HARRY HOURS AFTER FIRE CREWS MANAGED TO PUT THE FIRE OUT


Police one again tryed to take controll of the situation, but were overwhelmed by the vast numbers of thugs and were forced back, once again.. the member of JELLYFIELDERS caught this on camera



As fires broke out in 4 other buildings police stood nearby and looters were allowed for 6 hours to freely force entry to shops and premises.. taking what they saw fit.

 fire rage in blue inc oppasite macdonalds on the high street taking the flats above the store. the building then collapsed out into the highstreet , 
THIS IS WHAT IS LEFT OF BLUE INC




this fire was still burning 5 hours after police secured the area,here is an image i took from the rear of the building

other fires during the dark hours of the morning included a complex of stores on woolwich's new olympic square , stores in this complex included a newly opened wilkos, a family ran poundshop, woolwich tramshed community building, ladbrookes and the above offices and ajacent barclays bank.


another building consumed by fire included WIMPY, a family restaurant  that has sat on the corner of the square for over ten years







Users of twitter and facebook that were stuck in the area updated and posted pictures during the night andearly hours of the morning giving accounts of happenings during the night,








one greatly seen post was "just seen a woman selling stolen scarfs and bandanas to teens,adults and kids so they could hide there faces"



another police vehicle came under attack
 and police decided to move further away giving more freedom to the thugs


members of twitter posted "just seen a girl running down the street with a xbox under one arm and a ps3 under the other"


as stores such as gamestation and game were looted front to back including storerooms in the rear










phone shops such as tmobile, vodafone , carphone warehouse and 02 were looted as thugs pulled away bottoms of shutters and smashed windows to gain access








as fires still raged across woolwich town center jewelers, pawnbrokers and cheque cashing stores  were robbed blind of cash , gold, silver and diamonds 




and tvs were ripped from the walls from betting shops such as  ladbrookes , and coral




ladbrookes was then set on fire.




many more stores were looted ,


EVEN NANDOS AND MACDONALDS CAME UNDER ATTACK,


MACDONALDS STAFF WERE  APPRENTLY TAUNTED BY A LARGE GROUP WITH HAMMERS. 
FOOD WAS STOLEN AND THE TILLS OPENED WITH FORCE WITH HAMMERS (THIS MACDONALDS ACCOUNT HAS NOT YET BEEN CONFIRMED)


 and thugs of all ages including men and women were seen fleeing the town centre with bags and handfulls of stolen clothes and trainers , jd sports was robbed blind of trainers and clothing also.


all in all woolwich was under attack, and there was nothing the police did or could do that would stop the situation from changing ... all they could do was wait for the thugs and looters to give up and go home.


I myself spoke to one riot officer early inthe morning hours after it calmed down and i asked


WHAT TIME DID U MANGE TO REGAIN CONTROLL OF WOOLWICH?
he answered " we didnt "


as the world watched online and on tv the scenes from various other towns and citys across britain being overcome by riots,
woolwich on the other hand wasnt reported, press refused to come anywhere near the area, not even twitter posts to SKY and BBC were read out or reported,


all in all it seems a MEDIA COVERUP may be the case as woolwich is one of the main 2012 OLYMPIC towns.. maybe the goverment didnt want to show any areas to hold olympic games as out of control, damaged or under seige.

WATCH THIS VIDEO OF MINE ... I ASK THE POLICEMAN.. " WHEN DID THE POLICE REGAIN CONTROL OF WOOLWICH .. HE CLEARLY REPLIES " REGAIN CONTROL ?....WE DIDNT"





and over 3 days on since the riot in woolwich.. still nothing has been shown or said on tv apart from a 10 second cut FROM THE  ABOVE VIDEO of police being pushed back. this on the night was labeled as liverpool on SKY NEWS , and the next morning it was labeled as BRISTOL,


as time passes by and the cleanup beginsand woolwich trys to return to some kind of normailty.. 




residents from the local community have organised cleanups and many have turned up with brooms and bags to help with the cleanup effort,




greenwich council has since released that anyone found gulity of crimes in woolwich that live in the greenwich borough will be kicked from there council propertys. 


CONTRACTORS ARE OUT IN FORCE AND FOR SOME REASON SEEM TO BE QUICKLY GETTING RID OF THE CARNAGE..


YET STILL .. NO MEDIA COVERAGE




police have since made arrests .. i wont speak of numbers .. as they are changing constantly , and raids have been taken out on houses and flats in the local area and stolen goods seized back from the theives.


i would like to dedicate this BLOG and REPORT to the residents, buisness owners and emergency services in woolwich that have had property stolen, damaged and those who have been unable to work due to the destruction.


people do care.. and even though the media havent reported the terrible incidents locals have taken it apon themselfs to report woolwich incidents  .
 MYSELF.. MISTERMERCER - FIND ME ON TWITTER - CLICK HERE ,  
  also JELLYFIELDERS - FIND ME ON TWITTER - CLICK HERE 
and a few other twitter users 
 U CAN FIND ON THE WOOLWICH HASHTAG #WOOLWICH
 have been updating and reporting on a  regular basis to keep local people informed of what is going on AS IT HAPPENS , 


 i would also like to thank tracey gregg for creating a facebook page reporting what the media and news have not reported .. join this facebook group here  Woolwich- What you haven't seen on the news  


i would like to thank the local community group on facebook Community Riot Clean Up - Woolwich for donating there own free time to helping with the cleanup effort 






AS WOOLWICH ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE SOME NORMAILTY .. WE STILL WAIT FOR THE MEDIA AND NEWS TO REPORT IT THEMSELFS.. TILL THEY DO.. I HOPE THIS REPORT HAS HELPED 


MORE PICTURES ARE AVALIABLE ON MY OPEN FACEBOOK FOLDER 
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICTURES




VIDEOS BY JELLYFIELDERS - WWW.JELLYFIELDERS.COM

video also by bluartiste
IMAGES BY MYSELF DANNY MERCER AKA MISTERMERCER + my brother THOMAS HILL




ALSO FOR MORE PICS AND DETAILS ON THE LOCAL RIOTS AND CRIME
WOOLWICH AND THAMESMEAD, INCLUDING MORE OF MY PICTURES 
PLEASE READ GAVIN BRYDONS BLOG 

find me on twitter @MISTERMERCER




ADD MISTERMERCER ON BBM 23A7CC89

4 comments:

  1. WONDERFULL JOB, WELL DONE, THANK YOU

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  2. Good post mate!!!
    It's hard to stress how useful twitter has been over this week. With the lack of media coverage it was hard to know how dangerous Woolwich was on the Monday night. Lidl is usually open til 9, so I almost went up into town at about 8pm. Luckily, just out of curiosity I searched for "woolwich" on twitter and was amazed at what I saw. After that I was glued to twitter reading all the updates from those nearer town including the videos and photos of the destruction live as it happened. I had the news on the TV and kept expecting them to cut to Woolwich & was v surprised when they didnt. At first I thought it was because the large fires in Croyden made for more visually shocking news. Over time though it became apparent that Woolwich was completely off peoples radars and very much a forgotten town by the media. It didn't even feature in the METs public briefing on Tuesday morning even though many less badly hit areas were included.

    I'd like to thank twitter users for all the help they provided on the Monday night and Tuesday mornings reporting that which would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Also twitter served as a vital source real-time public transport updates. It was possible to notify people when the station & DLR were shut down on Monday night as well as the bus routes affected, allowing people to seek alternative routes or places to stay.



    I'm @string158 on twitter & was RT'ing like crazy to make sure the important info kept flowing!! To ban twitter in times like this could have made the situation much worse for people in the surrounding area who otherwise wouldn't have known what was going on.

    Thanks v much mistermercer and all others out there on twitter. Also big thanks for everyone who was able to get involved in the clean up operation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent work, well done. It was so annoying as my brother lives right in the middle of woolwich town centre and he was telling me about the riots, i thought he was exaggerating as there was absolutely nothing on the news. Woolwich always gets the bum deal from the media.

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  4. I would just like to add to your report that the fire and subsequent building collapse at BlueInc in Powis Street included two flats above the shop, a large family on the first floor and a group of 3 single people in the top flat have lost their homes and all their possessions.

    ReplyDelete