London Riots

 At around 9pm last night we started to hear a lot of sirens and people
yelling but it didn't sounded like it was very close. But then by 9:30 it
had moved to our street. I peeked out the window and I could see
people dressed all in black with masks on running around, some of them
where carrying tvs.  You could hear a lot of noise but when I peeked
out the window you could not see much. At about 10 my roommate who had
gone to the park with her boyfriend, they did not know there was going
to be a riot when they left, luckily they got back safely. Came and
checked on me to see if I was okay, she told me that we should be safe
and our greatest danger would me if a fire got out of control and
spread to our house. She said to keep as many lights off as possible
and don't look out the window, because if the rioters see you they
will throw bricks and rocks at the window.  Most of the noise and
stuff was all coming from the shops that are a block away. My house
mates said that they would leave the residential area alone unless
some one tried to stop them. So there were a few people dressed in
black hanging out on the street watching the houses. At about 11 I
deiced to go to bed. As I went to bed I heard  a helicopters flying low,
so I peeked out the window and could see a couple of helicopters with
search lights scanning the area. I do not know if they were police
helicopters or news helicopters, but either way the rioters did not
like them and began to scatter.  So I went to sleep, I woke up at
about 12:30 because I heard a lot of loud sirens. So I peeked out the
window again and saw two big police cars, like SUV type cars parked in
front of our house, and a bunch of police officers dressed in suites
and masks, and with big shield things got out and walked around
looking for people. They talked to some people that were out on the
street I do not think they were rioters just curios neighbors. After
checking the place out the police moved on.  I could also smell a lot
of smoke and when I looked out the window I saw a huge cloud of smoke
I could not see any flames, but there was differentially a fire, or
fires somewhere. By 1:30 the streets were clear of people and
everything seemed pretty quite, so I went back to sleep.
When we first got up this morning all of the streets around us were
blocked off, so that they could clean up the mess. Later in the day
when they opened them up we took a break from painting and went to
look at the damage. All of the people in the neighborhood went
out to help clean up, we were just about the only people walking
around without a broom or garbage sack. There was a lot of damage done
to a lot of stores, but at least only one building was set on fire but
sadly is was a store that had some flats above it so some people lost
their homes. The whole thing is just terrible it awful to see a bunch
of guys and girls around my age causing so much destruction.
As we were working today my roommates were telling me what they saw
out the window last night as I was sleeping. They said that the
rioters would go and break in to the stores and get there loot then
they would come and hide it behind the walls ( our fences) in front of
the houses. So that is what the guys dressed in black were doing last
night, besides watching the house they were guarding their loot. Then
a car would come and drop off more rioters and pick up the loot. They
would also empty out the bags of recycling that we had in bins outside of our house, and use the bags to put their loot in.

This is the building that was set on fire.

These walls in front of the houses are where they stashed there loot.