What a Riot

By now you’ve likely heard about the St. Patrick’s Day riot here in my city of London.  What an embarrassment to me and my fellow Londoners. But it remains to be seen if it was actually London kids who caused about $100,000 in damage to homes and a CTV vehicle they blew up on notorious Fleming Drive.  As I write this 11 people are under arrest, 7 of whom are Fanshawe College students.  There’s a ton of video available because that’s what kids do.  Practically every cellphone can take video.  Police Chief Brad Duncan is totally pissed off and vowing to use all of his resources to root out anybody who was involved.

It started as a fire call and when firefighters arrived to put out a brush fire they were pelted with bottles and sticks of wood.  (Anyone out there still think firefighters don’t face the same dangers police do?)  Police were called in and the crowd swelled and more destruction to private property was carried out. Fences were torn down and burned.  Officers were pelted with bottles.  An estimated 1,000 bystanders flooded into the streets and launched a mob attack on the cops who retreated and watched the street go insane.  The CTV vehicle that was torched was allowed to burn since it wasn’t threatening any homes.  Police stood watch until dawn but couldn’t do much but launch smoke bombs to keep the kids at a distance.  Mob mentality is impossible to reason with.

There are several factors at work here.  Fanshawe students come from all over the country and elsewhere around the world.  On Fleming Drive, their universe extends a mere couple of blocks to the school and back.  Many of them don’t give a rat’s ass about London or its citizens.  Someone easily could have been killed.  Another issue is the non-students the gatherings like St. Patrick’s Day attract.  Out of the 11 arrested 5 were described as non-students.  But clearly the one-thousand people out on Fleming Drive on Saturday night were either there to cause trouble or to watch it.  Had it been me, I would have high-tailed it home in a hurry.  And if my home was on Fleming Drive, I would have gone elsewhere.  There is no excuse for what happened.  Not green beer, not youth, not anything – it was an assault on our community and it’s going to be dealt with accordingly.  The College has issued a statement saying it’s going to do what it can to root out the trouble-makers and urging them to turn themselves in.  I’m not about to say “hang ’em high” but I want a strong message sent to anyone who tries to screw with my city and its police.  Yeah, I take it personally.

2 thoughts on “What a Riot”

  1. I agree completely as I live in London too. It is very sad 🙁 I wish I knew what the solution was though as this has happened too often

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