Riot police arrest 19, seize rifle

[Blue_Tires]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12394367-2,00.html

SYDNEY riot police have arrested 19 people and seized a rifle today amid continuing violence sparked by the deaths of two teenagers in a stolen car.

A teenage girl and a man were arrested about 10.40pm (AEDT) near the junction of Rosewood Drive and Eucalyptus Drive in Macquarie Fields.
Two more men were later arrested about 11.20pm (AEDT), bringing to 19 the number of people detained today. Skirmishes were breaking out across the suburb, which was in virtual lockdown.

Meanwhile, Assistant Police Commissioner Denis Clifford confirmed on radio that the driver of the stolen vehicle which crashed on Friday had come into Macquarie Fields police station the next day, only to be allowed to go free.
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wow...you all are becoming more like us! lol...rioting over some joyriders?

[no safe haven]

1. The deaths of the 2 teenagers was the spark

This country is becoming more and more polarised economically and socially. In the past year or so, there have been riots in Redfern, Palm Island and now a public housing estate in Sydney. People who live in these places are marginalised and take their frustrations and anger out on the police by throwing molotov cocktails, bricks, anything they can get their hands on. Australia used to pride itself on being egalitarian but those days are slipping away.

I have to say though that the police did not jump in and start cracking skulls, so we're not quite up to the US standard yet.

[Blue_Tires]

2. yes, the police admirably tried to make the best

of a bad situation...

Let me get this straight: 3 teens steal a car, run from the cops, and crash....Why are people blaming the police in all this?

[no safe haven]

3. It's an emotional response, not based on something rational

...other than the fact that some residents believed that the police should not have been in a high-speed chase down a narrow street, thus resulting in the crash and deaths. (OK, the driver should not have stolen the car in the first place, but that was not their point.) Lots of kids with nothing to do, noplace to go, not too many prospects for the future. It breeds contempt for any kind of 'authority', and the police, it just so happens, are the public face of that authority.

Public housing estates in this city are a bit like US ghettos - they are in areas where industry has long since disappeared, no chance of local employment, etc. People despair of ever finding a way out and are angry at the system that is, to their way of thinking, holding them down. Sadly, this situation is becoming institutionalised like it is in so many large cities around the world. People just won't stand for it - they turn their world upside down to a point where 'criminality' is a heroic act of defiance.
Cheers

[Blue_Tires]

4. ok...now i get it....

has the situation gotten any better there?

[SweetLeftFoot]

5. The Murray River

Us Victorians need to build a wall along our bank of it, declare the Republic and live in peace.