Distress of Nations: London: Soldiers drafted in and extra armed police on the streets
Also, the latest coming form the riots in St. Louis
Armed police have flooded London's streets as the terror threat level was raised to critical amid fears the Parsons Green bomber could strike again, Theresa May announced tonight.
The introduction of Operation Temperer
will see soldiers replacing police at key sites including nuclear power
plants to free up extra armed officers for regular patrols.
Scotland Yard said it is making
'excellent' progress in hunting the suspected terrorist who set off a
crude bucket bomb on a packed commuter train by Parsons Green tube station in west London at 8.20am.
Mrs May said in a statement from Number
10: 'The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has now decided to raise the
national threat level from severe to critical - this means their
assessment is that a further attack may be imminent.'
Minutes later Assistant Commissioner Mark
Rowley suggested there might have been more than one person involved,
stating that police were 'chasing down suspects'.
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Second Night Of Chaos In St Louis
For the second consecutive night, peaceful daytime protests descended into late-night violence with broken windows and thrown rocks, water bottles and garbage can lids following Friday’s acquittal of a white former police officer in the shooting death of a black suspect.Shortly before 11 p.m. at Leland and Delmar, a small group of protesters threw chunks of concrete at police and broke windows at numerous Delmar Loop businesses. A chair was thrown through the window of a Starbucks. One protester was seen hitting a police SUV with a hammer. Police made more than a half-dozen arrests witnessed by reporters, including a protester who was carried away by officers by his arms and legs.
As the chaos escalated, scores of police officers in riot gear pushed forward against the demonstrators just after 11 p.m. — about two hours after daytime protest organizers had congratulated their followers on keeping their demonstrations peaceful.
By 11:30, about 200 police officers had pushed most of the protesters out of the area and the violence and vandalism appeared to be dissipating. The sidewalks along the vibrant area of restaurants and shops were strewn with glass from broken windows.
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"Not Another Charlottesville": Richmond Police Enforce Weapons Ban Ahead Of Confederate Rally
Source: Zero Hedge
By banning most weapons, a decision that was discussed during a city council meeting earlier in the week, police hope to prevent the level of violence witnessed just 70 miles away in Charlottesville last month, when a young woman was killed and dozens were injured after a white nationalist demonstrator drove his Dodge Charger into a crowd of protesters.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, authorities are planning to cordon off a “weapons-free assembly zone” around the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in an effort to head off any potential violence at a rally to support preserving Confederate monuments planned for Saturday. After a crowd of protesters destroyed a statue of Robert E Lee in Charlottesville last month, the city is refusing to allow anyone within a designated perimeter of the statue.“We do not want what happened in Charlottesville to happen in Richmond,” said Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham in a letter distributed to residents this week.
In recent months violent clashes between violent fring groups on both the right and the left have become depressingly regular occurrences at conservative speaking events and rallies. Police at the University of Berkeley tightened security on Thursday during a speech by former Breitbart editor and conservative author Ben Shapiro. While the speech was described as a “success” by organizers, and protests were described as “largely peaceful,” Berkeley police still made nine arrests, three on weapons-related charge, according to Fox.
Richmond police said they’re compiling a list of banned items, including knives, bats, pepper spray, sticks and flagpoles – but, in an ironic twist – they’re hesitant to include guns. Virginia is, after all, an open-carry state, and prohibiting guns, even a temporary ban in a designated safety zone, could present thorny legal issues, according to the Times-Dispatch.
Police have sought to downplay comparisons with Charlottesville: conveniently, the turnout is expected to be small, though, as the Post-Dispatch reports, nobody knows exactly how many demonstrators to expect on Saturday. The rally is being planned by a neo-Confederate group based in Tennessee called “CSA II: The New Confederate States of America.”“They are cordoning off the area and making it a specific assembly area where you can’t bring certain items in,” Councilwoman Kim Gray told the Fan District Association board on Tuesday evening. “They’ll be listing items you can’t bring into that area, and weapons will be at the top of the list.”
NBC12 - WWBT - Richmond, VA News On Your Side
The group is a for-profit business whose primary focus appears to be selling Confederate-themed T-shirts and other paraphernalia, according to the Post-Dispatch. The group is so obscure, apparently, that Virginia’s largest pro-Confederate organization, the Virginia Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, has advised members not to attend.
Tara Brandau, a militia supporter who is apparently helping to organize the rally, told reporters at a press conference on the sidewalk along Bank Street in front of the Virginia Capitol on Friday that responses to a Facebook event page is their only gauge of attendance, the Post-Dispatch reported. Though as she admitted, “anybody could show up.”“Although authorities acknowledge they’re preparing for the worst, so far they’ve downplayed the parallels between the rally planned for this weekend and the one that took place last month in Charlottesville, which was heavily promoted for months by several large white nationalist organizations.”
“The Richmond rally, in contrast, is being planned by a small, largely unknown Confederate heritage group based out of Tennessee, and so far, only about 50 people have signaled they plan to attend.”
According to the Post-Dispatch, no Black Lives Matter counter-protesters – who tend to show up early to these types of events – had yet arrived, though several counterprotests were planned, including an “RVA Stands United Rally and March,” which will begin at the Maggie Walker statue at Adams and Broad streets at a time that has not yet been announced.“It says in the event page 70-something coming, 400 and something interested and there's over 400 shares,” she said. “You can't go by that. Anybody could show up with all the media. I cannot tell you a number.”
