Salford and Manchester city centre saw disorder from the afternoon of Tuesday, August 9.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) like other forces have been using social media websites both to put out messages for the public and to guard against damaging rumours and to scan for those websitesโ use by criminals to organise or boast. GMP say that they have made one arrest of a man on suspicion of using Facebook to incite disorder and โwill not hesitate to arrest anyone involved in this type of criminal activityโ.
Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said: "Over the past few hours, Greater Manchester Police has been faced with extraordinary levels of violence from groups of criminals intent on committing widespread disorder.
"Shops have been targeted, looted and set on fire and I, like everyone else, am absolutely appalled by the shameful actions of these criminals who have attacked our cities and have put Manchester and Salford in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
"This is nothing more than senseless violence with no absolutely no regard for people, their property or livelihoods. These criminals have also attacked some of my officers and other emergency services who are simply trying to do their job to keep the public safe and restore order.
"These people have nothing to protest against โ there is no sense of injustice or any spark that has led to this. It is, pure and simple, acts of criminal behaviour which are the worst I have seen on this scale.
"Despite the extremely challenging situation we are facing, my officers are continuing to respond to any outbreaks of disorder, doing their best to protect people and property and arrest those involved. We have already made a number of arrests and we will arrest more.
"We have said all day that we will respond to any incidents robustly and I want to stress that we will continue to arrest criminals who have brought such violence to our streets. We have captured offenders on CCTV and I want to send a clear message to these people that they will not get away with this โ we are reviewing these images and we will be coming for you as early as tomorrow.
"During the day, we have received overwhelming messages of support from our community who share our dismay at the actions of these people. We have also received assistance from other Forces around the region and we would like to thank them for their support.
"I would like to thank all our communities for the support they have shown and would ask for that continued assistance from members of the public by staying out of Manchester city centre and Salford while we deal with the disorder and telling us who these people attack our cities are."
