It's Deja Vu All Over Again...

...just like the London riots 

Terrified residents have taken to the streets of Leeds to defend their homes after 'violent' thugs drove riot police out after setting the city ablaze. Chaos erupted in Harehills, east Leeds early yesterday evening following an outbreak of 'serious disorder' that saw bonfires lit across the city, a cop car overturned and a double decker bus torched, reducing it to a charred and twisted wreck. Community members were forced to plead with the rabble as police, despite having first responded to the disturbance around 5pm last night, remained relatively absent from the mayhem until 1am today.

In other worfs, just at the Met Police did years ago in Croydon, they ran away. And no doubt just as in Croydon, they will face no sanctions for their cowardice and dereliction of duty... 

Credit where credit's due, one person did face down the mob, and it appears it's solely thanks to him that lives and businesses weren't lost as in 2012:

Green Party councillor Mothin Ali, who after being elected to Leeds Council in May declared his victory a 'win for the people of Gaza', begged the rioters to stop, saying 'there's children in there', as fires burned in the streets.

He clearly has more courage than the whole of the West Yorkshire Police farce and fire brigade put together. 

Officers were called to an incident at an address in Luxor Street at 5pm on Thursday where they found an 'ongoing disturbance' involving agency workers and children, West Yorkshire Police said. Locals allege the chaos was linked to local children being taken into care, adding that some people in the community responded by setting fires and 'throwing stones'. A large crowd began to gather at the location, prompting the agency workers and children to be taken to a safe place and more officers were requested to attend the area where 'pockets of disorder' were emerging.

The Home Secretary has condemned the 'shocking scenes and attacks' in the northern city and West Yorkshire police, which has been accused of intentionally avoiding the riot, vowed that the 'full weight of the law will be brought against those responsible'.

Meanwhile, in Whitechapel in London, The Met Police were dealing with the fallout of politics in another country. Or rather, not dealing with it: 

Some people expressed frustration at the absence of a visible police presence, though it did appear to de-escalate the situation. One man said: “The police don’t care about our area. They’ve just left, they’ll let us deal with it.”

Some will say that the police are right, saying that for them, it's 'damned if they do and damned if they don't', and that they shouldn't face bricks and bottles when they try to save these people from themselves. But that's to forget that that's what they are paid and trained to do.

And they are failing to do their job.