On the third consecutive night of violence and looting, hordes of balaclava-clad yobs stormed shops, setting fire to businesses indiscriminately.
As police fought running battles with mobs of rioters – many of them teenagers –
detectives were also called to investigate a shooting incident. A Metropolitan Police source said the incident was believed to be “non-fatal”�.
Among the casualties of the arson attacks was a furniture store that has stood for nearly 150 years in the south London borough.
Reeves,
a family run business established in 1867, was engulfed in flames sending smoke billowing across the London skyline.
Still on the council’s website last night was a message warning would-be demonstrators that looting would not be tolerated in the borough.
It promised that “mobile enforcement unit dog patrols and neighbourhood enforcement officers”� would provide “high-visibility presence in the town centre”� and that CCTV would be monitored.
However, by 8.30pm it became evident that the police had been outflanked, leaving firefighters to tackle the flaming ruins of the looters’ targets.
Witnesses described seeing every single shop window smashed along London Road – the main thoroughfare in the borough – as gangs of “marauding youths”� left a trail of carnage, unchallenged by police.
Alan McCabe, landlord of Old Fox and Hounds pub in Croydon, said a mob of around 200 swept through the area.
“It kicked off very quickly, and we tried moving people out the pub as fast as possible,”� he said.
“We blocked up the front doors and moved them out the back. I ripped off all the spirits off the optic behind the bar, so that if anyone did break in they couldn’t be used as Molotovs.
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I have never seen such a disregard for human life