Riots

I got home from work at about 11pm last night and just stared at the TV feeling nothing but total devastation.

The riots started in London at the weekend. The official story initially was that people were protesting the police shooting of Mark Duggan on Thursday. Shall we start there? Yes. Mark Duggan was a drug dealer. He pulled a gun on armed police. He was shot and killed.

He is not a martyr. He was a dangerous criminal that fed on the misery of others. The community should be happy that he has been removed.

Instead, youngsters took to the streets, burning and looting as they went. And I mean youngsters. 13, 14, 15 year olds.

There were images of a woman trying on shoes before she took them from a sports store. This is not looting; this is basic theft. If you loot in a riot, you take what you need; during the LA Riots in 1992, there were many stories of people looting water and toilet paper from stores because that is what they actually needed. No one needs an HD ready flat screen TV or 30 iPhones...

One teenage girl handed out scarves and told looters to cover their faces. There was a kid with a megaphone, organising his gang.

They have burned down historical buildings, businesses, homes.

They beat a young Asian man (he looked like a student) and then one of the rioters helped him to his feet before stealing his wallet.

Rioters snatched a baby, purely to traumatise the mother.

They have badly injured police officers who are only trying to do their jobs.

Are you feeling proud to be human yet?

Last night, the rioting spread to Birmingham and Bristol with varying reports coming out of Manchester, Liverpool and even Cardiff.

I was unable to sleep last night due to the police helicopters circling above my neighbourhood in Newport.

When my mother went to feed my sister's cats in town yesterday evening, a gang of 10 - 12 teenagers tried to stop her car. She locked the doors and put her foot down. And this is in quite a well-off part of the city.

They say on the news that this is a political protest, these kids are campaigning against the lack of socio-economic progressions available to them.

Utter bollocks.

These kids don't give a shit about any of that. How is stealing trainers and burning down the properties of independent shop keepers fighting the system?

This is pure, unadulterated thuggery. There are Facebook groups that are calling for violence in other cities. Why have Facebook not handed over the details of every group member to the police yet?

There is a growing underclass in Britain of people who choose not to be a part of society. They like living off the state or subsisting on petty crime. Even if they were given the chance to take the best available jobs, they would rather just rob and harm others.

Bring in the army. Bring in the water cannons. All rioters should get a minimum of 10 years in prison. At least then they will be adults by the time they are out and they may have actually learned a trade inside. The parents of these rioting teenagers should also be given prison sentences. You should all know where your kids are at night. You don't? You're failing as a parent.

It is ordinary people that are going out to clean up the cities today. You can find out where the nearest meet-up point is on Twitter.

Stop hurting each other.

You will never achieve anything this way.