The widespread rioting in London and English towns and cities on four nights in August 2011 left private security practitioners with difficult questions to do with risk and fire safety. First, Mark Rowe considers the abiding images of the riots.
The most defining images of the street riots and looting across England between August 6 and 9 highlighted aspects of the event. The leaping to safety of a woman from a burning building, for example. Just as after 9-11 security practitioners had to face the fact that some fanatics were evidently willing and able to fly jet planes into skyscrapers, so now some Londoners were prepared to set fire to premises that included people living โover the shopโ in flats. As for the looters and rioters themselves, that many โ but not all โ wore hoods or scarves over their faces showed that they were aware of CCTV and sought to disguise themselves from identification. Quickly and widely picked up in the general media were the images of looters proudly showing off their stolen wares on tables, as uploaded onto social media websites for the world to see, including law enforcers. Mark Hannaโs article in our January issue has proved far-sighted, suggesting that security professionals ought to be aware of such websites, as used by the non-security staff in their organisation. Security professionals, he suggested, can use such websites to put out messages, and monitor the sites to counter any unfounded rumours, or outright incitement to criminality. My abiding image was an aerial one, of dark smoke arising from a riot-hit part of London while in the foreground several miles from the worst rioting was Wembley Stadium, which nonetheless had an England-Netherlands friendly football match cancelled, as the Met Police doubted they could patrol (or re-claim) the streets and cover the international fixture. Even after the last night of riots, Tuesday, August 11, on the following Saturday the Tottenham Hotspur Premier League home game was postponed. Even if readers are not interested in sport, the fact that Tottenham have sought to move to the Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games reminds us of the looming risk โ of disturbances tarnishing the Games, with incalculable loss of national prestige.
CCTV
The riots showed the worth, and the limits, of CCTV. While it evidently did not deter rioters from looting shops, images of suspects was quickly and widely gathered by police and put on their websites; even shown on a giant screen in the centre of Birmingham. Heads of retail loss prevention may have allowed themselves a wry grin, if police were quicker and more diligent in asking for riot footage, compared to the average police response to an incident of shop theft or fraud. Likewise, the CCTV footage of looting โ with ever more impressive megapixel and HD cameras becoming available – showed the worth and limits of physical security measures, such as glazing, shutters and doors. Certainly the looters were quick learners, stealing chairs from one broken-into shop, such as a bookmakers, to attack the shop window of a place they really wanted to loot, such as a retailer of clothing, electrical goods, cosmetics or mobile phones. Cash Converters, too, was widely a target. Retailers have for years weighed the risk of doing business in a district with high crime and disorder with the cost and risk to staff. The riots may have prompted some retailers to re-think where they have branches, regardless of the Prime Minister David Cameronโs prompt offer, on August 11, of help for high streets.
Fire safety
The trend in recent years, part of regeneration of city centres, has been to hail landmark buildings such as the Mailbox in Birmingham, that have not only prestigious retailers but corporate offices, such as the BBC, some with 24-hour use. However that building on the Monday, August 8, had a fire alarm go off because of an attack on a post office branch. That gave the people and fire marshals inside a nasty choice โ stay where they were, or evacuate โ where the rioters were? There is, besides, a limit to what can be expected of security officers, if police are (literally?) fire-fighting. A mobile guard may not be able to reach a riot-torn district because of road closures. The static guard would not only be unable to stop looters โ and what would he do if he caught one, or two? That guard would be one more body at risk of assault or burning, that the employer has a duty of care towards. Just as all the security measures imaginable at a sports stadium have in a sense already failed if a suicide bomber or vehicle turns up, if the looters can use a reason or excuse in another city to be on the streets, in numbers and before the public police can mobilise numbers, there is only so much that physical or electronic security measures can do. Hence the likely decisions on risk by retailers and others as to whether itโs worth it for them to stay or locate new branches in parts of London and the other places hit by riots. Or, might shopping malls take retailers off the high street, the shopping centres able to offer an extra layer of perimeter security?
Public sector
CCTV control room managers, too, may allow themselves a grim smile if their council chief executive praises them for their work with police during the disturbances, and providing police with evidence afterwards, for many if not all public space CCTV control rooms have seen budgets cut โ meaning fewer operators โ as part of public sector austerity. Society has to ask itself how serious it is about tackling the people behind the riots, as last monthโs looters are this monthโs college starters, customers (in the very shops they looted?), and clients, for example at JobCentres (another popular place for vandalism during the riots). Society too has to ask how much it wants to spend on the public sector response, whether prisons, probation, zero tolerance, community cohesion or whatever. If the Coalition says that front line police can be protected by cutting the back office, that begs the question: what is the examining of CCTV evidence, but back office? Private security practitioners, as voters and members of society, can have a say in this debate. But it is as practitioners that they have work to do.
Online
It may be that the very disgust as felt by most English people to the riots may be a cause for optimism. Certainly police made much of the online and on-street support for them. Security practitioners could inform themselves and the majority of non-security people in their organisation by following police force websites, to give quit prompt and authoritative news in a perhaps confusing and frightening situation, as on and after 7-7. There were some bright spots. In Nottingham, police praised 23,000 of the cityโs football fans, who attended a Carling Cup tie between city rivals Forest and County. The tie was without trouble while police stations in the city burned. August 2011 was the month that football fans were hailed as law-abiding โ which people during the countryโs last bad riots, in 1981, would have found astounding. The final verdict however may well be in one yearโs time, after the London Olympics.
