The Brixton Riot

THE BRIXTON RIOT

By 1981, if the communities within the inner cities weren't already potential time-bombs waiting to explode, they certainly were after suffering two years of Thatcherism and increasing police prejudice.

Racial tensions in London were further stoked when a fire took place at a house in New Cross, leaving 13 young black people dead. Family members, friends and neighbours all felt the police simply weren't doing enough to establish what the cause of the fire was, particularly after it was suggested it may have been arson perpetuated by racists. In any other circumstances the deaths would have been considered a national tragedy but the event went hardly acknowledged by the authorities. In any other circumstances The Queen would have typically sent a message of condolence but instead there was silence. It seemed to the black community that if the victims had been white, perhaps the police and the media would have been more sympathetic and taken the incident more seriously.

As an expression of dissatisfaction and protest against the apathy as shown by the police and authorities regarding the deaths, a Black People's Day of Action was held and up to 20,000 people marched from the borough of Lewisham to central London; chanting and bearing placards with the words 'Thirteen dead, Nothing said'. The march was noisy but peaceful and viewed as a symbolically significant moment for Britain's black community for this was the first time they had ever amassed on the streets in such numbers. The next day's papers, however, depicted the event somewhat differently.

Unbeknownst to most people on the march, a fight had broken out between some black youth and the police and though it was an isolated incident and over very quickly, it was this that led the newspaper headlines. Darcus Howe had been asked his view of the demonstration and he had replied "It was a good day". His quote was used by the Evening Standard as a headline but juxtaposed with a photo of an injured police officer and it was this that was used to characterise the entire day. Other headlines read 'Black day at Blackfriars', 'When the black tide met the thin blue line', and 'Day the blacks ran riot through London'.

It was unbelievable. You couldn't make it up.

For many, the final straw came with Swamp 81, the name given to a police operation conducted in London that involved flooding specific areas with police in a bid to hunt down muggers and robbers. As nobody likes a mugger this was all well and good although as one of the main areas targeted was Brixton, to call the operation 'Swamp' was a tad insensitive as it was an obvious echo of Thatcher's pre-election comments regarding white neighbourhoods fearing being swamped by minorities. It didn't help matters that many entirely innocent people were being stopped, searched and arrested for no apparent reason, it appeared, other than being black. In Brixton, 1,000 people were stopped in just five days.

It was one such incident involving the harassment and arrest of a black taxi-driver that was the spark that caused Brixton to erupt into a riot that lasted for three days that saw the first widespread use of petrol bombs on the British mainland.

As in Bristol exactly one year before, objections from a crowd suddenly escalated from the verbal to the physical, to the throwing of missiles to full-blown riot. Unlike Bristol, however, the Commander in charge of the police was determined not to have his officers forced out of the area by the mob even under the most ferocious of assaults and the most dangerous of circumstances, choosing instead to remain on the streets and to suffer the consequences. In a bid to retain control 3,000 police officers from different areas were bussed into Brixton immediately though all to no avail.

A torrent of missiles were rained down upon the police lines - bricks, stones, bottles, pieces of iron, paving slabs, petrol bombs, even glass china plates. At one point whisky was poured over police riot shields in a bid to set them alight. Police cars, police vans and private vehicles were overturned and set on fire. Barricades were erected from overturned cars and corrugated iron. A car and even a hi-jacked bus was driven and pushed as battering rams into police lines. Wheelie bins were set alight and then pushed at the police. Youngsters taunted the police causing them to chase after them, only to lead them into dead ends where their friends waited to ambush them with volleys of bricks. Houses, shops and pubs were looted and burnt out. The police were battered, hammered and ultimately beaten.

Although complete disorder seemed to reign it was apparent there was a logic to the violence, evidenced by the properties that went untouched. Certain pubs and shops were left as smouldering ruins while others were left totally alone. The local anarchist squat/bookshop at 121 Railton Road, for example (which just so happened to be sporting a poster of the Bristol riot in its window), was left without a scratch.

By the end of the riot, Brixton was a scene of utter devastation. 60 civilians had been arrested but over 300 policemen had been both injured and hospitalised. Burnt-out cars littered the streets and buildings stood burnt-out, looted or damaged. 56 police vehicles had been destroyed. To the black community the riot would for ever more be known as 'The Insurrection' or 'The Uprising' but for the Metropolitan police it would be known as the first most serious riot of the 20th century.

According to the then Metropolitan police commissioner Sir David McNee and various reports in the newspapers, the violence in Brixton had been instigated by "trouble-makers from elsewhere" though no evidence was ever proffered to substantiate this. Much more likely was that the main influence upon the riot was the St Paul's riot in Bristol a year earlier which if nothing else had served as an inspiration. It would have been more relevant in actual fact for the police to have wondered why - following the Bristol riot - had it taken so long for Brixton to do likewise? But instead it seemed as if they preferred to apportion blame upon shady individuals, at one point even raising suspicion about the anarchists lurking within 121 Railton Road.

One thing for certain, however, was that Britain's most infamous anarchists at that time - Crass - had absolutely nothing to do with it. Though sympathetic to the anger and the reactions of the rioters to their conditions, Crass felt that rioting would only serve to increase the forces and modes of oppression.

In the official investigation (The Scarman Report) that followed the riot it was indeed stated that the police needed to be better organised for riot control, while the Met would later announce that many important practical lessons had been learnt from the experience which they would apply to any such future riots. Sir David McNee was also to put in a request as a matter of urgency for proper riot equipment which included a greater variety of shields, more vehicles, longer truncheons, water cannon and sufficient stocks of rubber bullets. At a grass roots level it also left the police wanting revenge. So in effect, Crass were correct though that's not to negate the very positive aspects of the Brixton riot:

Never again would the police feel so easily able to surge into a community such as Brixton; stopping, searching and arresting people on the most flimsiest of pretexts.

Never again would the police feel so easily able to blatantly disrespect the black community without also knowing of the risk being run.

And if any other community ever felt in the words of Discharge that they'd "been shit on for far too long", an example had been set about what could be done about it and what the authorities could expect as a result...