The sight of London's burning buildings and violence brought back memories of the riots of the 1980s, the Guardian reports.
The 1985 Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham were among the worst incidents of the decade. Racial tensions erupted after a local black woman died of heart trouble while police searched her home after arresting her son. In the ensuing violence, a police officer was murdered by a mob.
The sequence of events in Tottenham at the weekend has many echoes of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool of 1981, as well as unrest in Tottenham itself in 1985 and other incidents of unrest that decade: a local flashpoint in a deprived urban area, the rapid escalation of a local protest into mayhem as others pile into the area – and long summer nights.
