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?

The problem is surely that shoplifting so often has no consequences - unless it’s very high value items, the police just shrug their shoulders. And in London, mayor Sadiq Khan maintains that crime is going down - which maybe it is if you don’t look on shoplifting as just plain theft.

It’s high time we had a major police crackdown - and real consequences for what is so often blatant theft. No wonder we have gangs coming from parts of Eastern Europe specifically for shoplifting - they know we are so pathetically soft, they will probably not even get a slap on the wrist.
High time such gangs were deported instantly - with biometric details taken so they can never be allowed to return.

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.

Idiot internet trolls made you feel the most fury out of everything? I’ve seen some awful comments but my anger is directed at the fact that this is allowed to happen and these kids have zero care about what they are doing.

I think every town in the country has a group of teens and wrong-uns that hang around outside McDonalds. It is a magnet for bad behaviour where I live.

I lived in Hastings/St Leonards in the 80/90s - used to have gangs of mods facing off against the rockers at the weekends in similarly large numbers. Remarkable now I think about it given the lack of social media at the time.

I also understand that there were similar, albeit, slightly smaller events in other parts of the country that don’t seem to have been worthy of news coverage, yet give a broader context to the fact that this is a SM driven, generational phenomena not a London thing (anyone still wondering whether SM for the under 16s needs banning/curating?) I also worry that the footage seems to imply that it is black kids doing it, when I suspect un-curated footage may show there are as many white kids involved. This worries me as we already have growing far right/racial unrest and news/media is fuelling it.

So, no, I don’t think it has been exaggerated, but I do fear it is being misrepresented and the broader national picture is being deliberately downplayed.

My DM is a Clapham Battersea girl and she went to Ensham in the 50s.

The thing is if this escalates like it did in eg 2011 then you have youths setting fire to buildings. Running wild. No one wants that.

I gave four things I wonder about and now you want me to justify considering ideas. Not gonna.

In which case, your wondering is utterly futile.

Surely even a bit of looting and one arrest for attacking an emergency worker is too much?

The London riots happened well before tik tok was a thing and that managed to make that pretty big !

Something needs to be done about this or we will end up like San Francisco and some cities in the US where in stores everything is locked up.

Op has a point.

And why should they not have fun these disadvantaged teens. It's not as if their parents are taking them on cool Safari experiences, relaxing holidays in the Maldives or wholesome stays at a lovely cottage in Devon. At least they have some communal and resourceful fun and are not sedentary couch potatoes playing video games all day every day over the easter break.

What a load of rubbish. The vast majority of teens are not going on Safari, on holiday in Devon or the Maldives. Yet they manage to have fun without stealing and terrorising law-abiding people who are out shopping or working in shops.

Are you taking the piss? I really hope so.

Aw yeah, looting and assaulting the emergency services, a fantastic way to keep em off screens. If only someone had come up with it sooner. We'll have to start encouraging it in preschoolers.

Honestly the entitlement of people - we can't go to the Maldives so we should be allowed to riot instead. Are you still in school yourself? I can only assume so from those incredible levels of immmaturity.

Resourceful?? Really? How about all the resources used to deal with it? The police, security, ambulance workers, all expected to deal with this while old ppl wait hours for ambulance and police are too busy with this s* to be catching other criminals

If you understand that it must be very scary for the people experiencing it, then what on earth is your point? You said you haven’t even watched the footage.

I think the headlines were about right not that I saw them all. But the media attention.

The statement from M&S was deserved too.

There needs to be a massive crackdown on crime in the coming years. The rights of criminals have gone too far, it is the rights of ordinary law-abiding people that need to be paramount.

I said it made me furious, not the most fury, did you not read the rest of my post?

There is a societal problem if these teens are so disengaged that their idea of fun during the Easter holidays is intimidation. Do we really think the 14 year olds that are ok with smashing stuff up are going to turn into the kids that do well in their exams and have a clear career pathway? It’s unlikely isn’t it.

i live in a small town and we have these balaclava wearing muppets going round causing chaos. My son goes to senior school in September, I don’t dare let him go out alone at the moment and I’ve had new locks fitted at my front door. That’s not paranoia it’s from kids booting my door hard as they can terrifying my kids. It’s a real problem, first time in my life I’m scared to go out and fear for my kids. I’m also angry to be feeling this way.

as an aside, the posts I’ve seen on facebook about Clapham have made me disgusted when I see the racism in the comments.

The footages remind me of a zombie apocalypse, same behaviour from these feral teens 😮

What behaviour have I tried to excuse? Quote.

Re racism: obviously this doesn't justify racism but a lot of people on this thread are claiming the teens gathering were mostly black..do we know that for sure, though?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/in_the_news/5511203-why-arent-we-discussing-the-kids-running-riot-in-london-and-birmingham-off-the-bank-of-domestic-violence-tiktok-trend?page=11&reply=151471495