LONDON — Thousands more police officers flooded London streets Tuesday in a bid to end Britain’s worst rioting in a generation as nervous shopkeepers closed early and some residents stood guard to protect their neighborhoods. An eerie calm prevailed in the city, but unrest spread across central and northern England on a fourth night of violence driven by poor, diverse and brazen crowds of young people.
Scenes of ransacked stores, torched cars and blackened buildings frightened and outraged Britons, and brought demands for a tougher response from law enforcement. London’s Metropolitan Police department put thousands more officers in the streets and said that by today there would be 16,000 — almost triple the number present Monday.
Britain’s riots began Saturday when an initially peaceful protest over a police shooting in London’s Tottenham neighborhood turned violent. That clash has morphed into a general lawlessness in London and several other cities.
While the rioters have run off with sneakers, bikes, electronics and leather goods, they also have torched stores apparently just for the fun of seeing something burn. They were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods, and when police did arrive, rioters often were able to flee quickly and regroup.
Some saw Britain’s economic crisis and deep cuts planned for social benefits as a deeper underlying cause for the outburst of violence.
The show of strength by police appeared to have quelled unrest in London late Tuesday, but in a move that could raise tensions, a far- right group said about 1,000 of its members around the country were taking to the streets to deter rioters.
“We’re going to stop the riots — police obviously can’t handle it,” said Stephen Lennon, leader of the English Defense League. He warned that he couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be violent clashes with rioting youths.
Outside London, chaos continued to spread in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Leicester, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich.
In London, senior officers said they were considering the use of plastic bullets — blunt-nosed projectiles designed to deal punishing blows to rioters without penetrating the skin. Such weapons still are used to quell riots in Northern Ireland but have never been used by police on Britain’s mainland.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s government rejected calls by Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer and some members of the public for strong-arm riot measures that British police generally avoid, such as tear gas and water cannons.
“They should have the tools available, and they should use them if the commander on the ground thinks it’s necessary,” Mercer said.
So far, 685 people have been arrested in London and 111 charged — including an 11-year- old boy — and the capital’s prison cells were overflowing. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said it had teams of lawyers working 24 hours a day to help police decide whether to charge suspects, allowing them to quickly clear police-station cells.
A total of 111 officers and 14 members of the public have been hurt so far in the rioting, including a man in his 60s with life-threatening injuries, police said.
A soccer match scheduled for today between England and the Netherlands at London’s Wembley Stadium was canceled to free up police officers for riot duty. Cameron cut short a holiday in Italy to deal with the crisis, reversing an earlier decision to remain on his vacation. He recalled Parliament from its summer recess for an emergency debate on the riots Thursday.
Cameron described the scenes of burning buildings and smashed windows as “sickening,” but he refrained from tougher measures such as calling in the military to help restore order.
