Violence Erupts for Fourth Night in Britain
Youths smashed their way into stores and torched cars in central England on Tuesday, police said, as Britain's worst riots for decades entered a fourth night.
A gang of about 200 hurled missiles at police in riot gear, set vehicles alight and smashed shops in the town of West Bromwich, near Birmingham, Britain's second-biggest city, according to police and a BBC report.
Television pictures showed a gang lined up behind a barricade in a stand-off with scores of police in front of vans.
Violence also erupted in the nearby city of Wolverhampton, where youths broke into shops.
Meanwhile in Salford in Manchester, northwest England, a 20-strong gang targeted police cars with bricks before being dispersed, police said.
Rioters have repeatedly targeted police and 111 officers have been injured during three nights of rioting in London, where the violence started on Saturday before spreading to other parts of the country.
"In Wolverhampton, some stores have been broken into. In West Bromwich, there is currently some disorder and two cars have been set on fire," said a statement from West Midlands Police.
"Police officers are at both scenes dealing with the incidents."
A police spokeswoman refused to say how many people were involved in the disturbances.
West Midlands Police have already arrested more than 130 people after rioting late Monday in Birmingham, which saw shops smashed up and looted in the city center and a police station set on fire.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said officers came under attack at around 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) at a Salford shopping center.
"There were a number of bricks thrown at police vehicles," said the spokesman. "There were twenty youths which have been dispersed by around a dozen officers."
The violence began on Saturday in the ethnically-mixed north London district of Tottenham, following a protest against the shooting of 29-year-old man two days earlier.
An inquest into the man's death opened on Tuesday, and heard that he died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after the taxi he was traveling in was stopped by police investigating gun crime in the black community.
Copycat riots broke out in other flashpoint areas on Sunday, and by Monday night they had spread across the city, from the wealthy districts of Notting Hill and Clapham, to inner-city Peckham and Hackney, and suburban Croydon and Ealing.
Source: Agence France Presse
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