Paris Police Fear Rioters' Heavy Arms
From the Washington Times:
PARIS -- Police officers, exhausted and dispirited after 11 nights of street battles, say their mainly young African and Arab adversaries have access to sophisticated weapons including grenades and could soon begin using them.
A dozen officers were injured, two of them seriously, after being shot with hunting rifles fitted with lead pellets during rioting last night in the suburb of Grigny, south of Paris, police said.
Jean-Christophe Carne, president of a police trade union, told The Washington Times before last night's outbreak that police officers were increasingly pessimistic that civic order would be restored anytime soon.
"Most of these kids are being coached by professional petty criminals and gang leaders in the suburbs," said Mr. Carne, president of Action Police CFTC.
"In the past, when we have cracked down on these criminals in their homes, we found drugs, grenades and heavy weapons such as guns. While they haven't started using these arms yet, there's also no reason to think they wouldn't."
About 200 rioters took part in last night's rioting in Grigny, pelting police with stones and bottles and shooting shotgun pellets. "The pellets will not kill a person if fired from a distance, but in some circumstances, they can do serious harm, such as blind someone," said a police spokesman.
In other areas ringing the French capital, as well as in cities and towns across the country, arsonists continued to attack cars, buses, schools, social centers and day care centers as well as other public buildings using homemade gasoline bombs.
From Times Online (UK) regarding France:
11 NIGHTS OF VIOLENCE
15 CITIES AFFECTED
900 ARRESTS
4000 VEHICLES BURNT
2,300 ADDITIONAL POLICE ON PATROL
Joe H. writes:
4000 vehicles burned! 1300 of those on Saturday night. Who is doing this?
... rioting by youths, mainly of Arab and African origin
Can you say "Muslim"? Nope, I didn't think you could. But this is the line that really gets me:
The violence is widely blamed on the harsh rhetoric and tactics of Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and UMP leader.
And just what is the proper response? They don't say. They don't want to have to admit it. We have to destroy their extremist culture.