LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron promised Wednesday that Britain would end chaos caused by rioters who have looted and burned neighborhoods in London and other cities.
While London, where the trouble began late Saturday, was calming down, rioters took to streets in cities including Manchester and Birmingham, wrecking businesses and homes. In Birmingham, three young men who were guarding a neighborhood and its mosque were run down and killed by a car driven by a suspected rioter.
Cameron said the violence was the work of “thugs” who come from “pockets of our society that are not just broken, but frankly sick.”
“We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets,” he said after a government emergency committee meeting. “We will do whatever is necessary to restore law and order onto our streets. Every contingency is being looked at, nothing is off the table.”
Cameron visited Wolverhampton, a city near Birmingham, where rioters inflicted heavy damage.
Rioters also inflicted damage in Oxford, Reading and Gloucester, an affluent rural town.
Police have government backing to use water cannon and plastic bullets. Police were making more arrests and courts went into around-the-clock sessions.
In London, committees from the countries participating in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games arrived this week for trial events testing the sports venues. They expressed confidence in the city’s ability to keep order. But officials were being cautious: Beach volleyball games in a central London parade ground were scheduled to end Wednesday before dark, when the trouble usually starts.
Furious residents and business owners formed their own defense groups. About 100 Sikh residents of Southall in West London guarded their temple from looters with baseball and cricket bats.
Herchand Singh Grewal, vice president of London’s main Hindu temple, said people were being vigilant and were prepared to cooperate.
“Hindu, Muslim and Christians, we’re all ready to help each other. If someone in the neighborhood has trouble we all help him,” he said.
Looters targeting the East London mosque in Whitechapel were chased away by more than 1,000 residents, and the north London community of Dalston, a group of mainly Turkish store owners patrolled their own streets.
“I don’t want to see vigilantism, but it’s fantastic that people want to help each other,” said London’s mayor, Boris Johnson. He warned of complacency as the city quieted down: “We must set about now the work of repairing and rebuilding, and making sure the loss and the damage people have suffered is compensated.”
