To wonder whether the media headlines about teenage gatherings in Clapham have been a bit exaggerated?

[Carla786]

I live near but not in Clapham. I understand it must be very scary if you are in the area, having these crowds of teenagers suddenly turning up.
But AIBU to think the media are exaggerating the danger? I have heard there was some looting and one girl arrested for attacking a police officer but overall there doesn't seem to have been mass violence or theft. Just a lot of teens, some of them disturbingly masked, gathering in one place in big numbers because of some TikTok trend.

I honestly wonder if all the media coverage was unhelpful in the sense that it may have given them the reaction they wanted.

AIBU?

I am sure they will be let out without punishment and they will commit the same crime next week. Nothing will be done...

This wasn't about the Clapham incident. If you read the Telegraph article, he's talking about separate incidents. I addresseed this on page 1

How does intimidating retail staff help them gain better wages?

Looked like school corridors at lesson change time. Obviously a bit peculiar happening out of context.

V few arrests and all of girls does make me wonder.

I know you've repeatedly explained which bits are wrong. My question though is which bits are OK?

She’s critiquing the media coverage ffs. Why do people create these annoying straw man debates?

I think you’re being unreasonable.

There were hundreds of teens out of control, stopping traffic and disrupting people and business. Let’s not forget they’re wearing black to disguise their identity.

Two questions

• Where did their parents think they were?
• Would their parents be okay if they had to close their place of work just to protect their property?

If we excuse this behaviour - and similar behaviour in the North East, Manchester or wherever - we are letting parents off the hook.

At the end of the day, this is a PARENTING fail.

Were you looting by any chance? You are absolutely desperate to make it seem…noble 😂

What does it make you wonder?

These teens have not be "shat on from a great height" for the last 20 years, though their parents may have been. They have excellent access to education and training, and more and better options for leisure and entertainment than ever before. Young adults have it very tough but these are not young adults, these are stupid, spoiled kids.

I agree @Hallamule

These are also Londoners- Clapham Junction is a major train interchange. Believe it or not from what you read here, London schools are pretty good on the national level, these kids have access to comprehensive and FREE transport until 16 - freedom that many teens in the country can only dream of - and access to jobs, parks and sports that comes with a capital city.

There is plenty to do besides rioting with hundreds of others.

Absolutely! Are you off rioting alongside these poor, misunderstood kids @DeftGoldHedgehog ?
youd support them taking your car, smashing up your property as “damn the man!! Smashing up a randoms toyata aygo rails against the state!!

Thank you!

It does seem weird 2 13yo girls and 1 17yo were able to attack a (presumably male) adult emergency worker. I suppose the numbers difference was part of it. Also the poor man may have feared further retaliation from nearby teens if he fought back more vigorously- or being sued by stupid parents, for that matter.

I just want to know how much is OK, and where @Carla786 would draw the line. She clearly thinks some of it is wrong. And she isn't just critiquing the media coverage, she's seeking to excuse some of the behaviour.

Three teen girls could easily hurt a grown man, especially if we don’t know his age. Let’s hope he has a quick recovery.

No she isn’t. There’s another thread on this in the News section which would be better suited to you. This thread is about the media coverage.

Because everyone knows if he defended him self then the photos/footage of this would be all over media with the poor young girls being attacked by this horrible male..

😂😂
She thinks some of it is not as bad as the media makes out (and, bizzarely, the Chinese Communist Party, who maybe orchestrate such gatherings with their Tik Tok programme of social engineering 🤔)

If anything the menace was underrated. It was the third time in this bit of Clapham - no one’s reported the first oh-so playful incident where they had to evacuate schools near me.

The adorable teens are it again tomorrow, so let’s see. Unless a few of them get painful consequences, they’ll presumably carry on.

Yes, of course food inflation is a cause of this social unrest. They’re raiding M&S food, not SportsDirect. But this ain’t how to fix it.

It’s a fine line between reporting something that lots of people would have witnessed, especially with the large police presence, and not wanting to give more publicity to this craze. Perhaps there is a London bias; I am not aware of this happening on other cities but assumed it’s because I only saw this in the local London news anyway. I think it’s reasonable to report it, it could have got out of hand quite easily. Perhaps there needs to be a longer feature piece about the appeal of these events and what parents can practically do rather than being blamed for poor upbringing and banning TikTok. When there were the riots across the country a number of years ago this was close to this area, so I can see why it would be picked up in the media again.

I’m alright Jack.

Every school half term and holiday my child's school sends out an email from the police warning about this and another from the local shopping centre, which does not allow any teenagers inside without an adult on the last day of term, so straight home for my one on these days. Childs school also has sometimes staggered leaving times between the different school years to try and avoid this.

In my local area from what I have heard it has happened once maybe twice, no looting or violence just a mass of teenagers luckily, however, people still feel intimidated. It’s not fair for the well behaved teenagers who perhaps just want to grab a burger with their mates.

Parents need to drum it into their teens not to do these stupid trends, although I imagine some have, others don’t seem to care.

What did make me feel furious was the comments on social media posts, which from what I saw were disgustingly racist “usual suspect” , “Import the 3rd world” type of posts.

Were only girls assaulting anybody “under cover” of the larger general crowd?

Or were they arrested because they were smaller and slower than the lads?

It is equally possible they are the kind of mean girls types who just thump people because they do.

Or something else - you just never feel like you get the full story with these things.

Are you suggesting some kind of misogynist conspiracy on the part of the police to arrest only girls? Or just that it was only girls that they manged to catch. The latter is possible, the first would be absurd.