a smell of marijuana as missiles thud against police shields

[Pelican Press 0]

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a smell of ********** as missiles thud against police shields

It was when a lone police officer on a motorbike arrived at a

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that 80 minutes of skirmishes descended into mob *********.

After scuffles, several charges and volleys of ******, the officer arrived at the back of the clashes where people were being pushed back from police with riot shields.

Within seconds of being noticed he was being toppled from his bike and punched, kicked and hit with a wooden pole on Liverpool’s Strand.

The officer found his way up and escaped but it was too late to stop the ********* escalating.

Amid the smell of ********** and the sound of missiles thudding against riot shields, thousands turned the Liverpool waterfront into a battleground.

Initially it had been confined to chants between anti-immigration demonstrators chanting “Save our ******” and “Stop the Boats” or praising

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Counter-demonstrators next to the port city’s iconic Liver Building came back with chants of “***** *****, off our streets”.

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People gather in Liverpool following the stabbing attacks on Monday in Southport – PA/James Speakman

For a short time it was confined to chanting and the occasional plastic bottle being thrown, with police dogs keeping the most aggressive at bay.

But 50 minutes later, masked youths led hundreds round The British Music Experience Museum, celebrating the Beatles and others, in an attempt to corner the counter-demonstration.

As the numbers grew the scene became more tense as people attempted to break through the line.

Police succeeded in pushing back rioters but the further they moved along the Strand the more objects the crowd of masked men and often children found to hurl at officers.

By the time they had toppled the officer on the motorbike, missiles had gone from empty cans of Stella to bottles, wooden poles and car hubcaps.

Next came the bricks. Having struggled to find many objects around the Liver Building where businesses had closed, a storehouse was hacked until the bricks came loose.

Yellow Merseyside police vans took the ***** before officers lined with rectangular right shields stood firm as the debris flew over them.

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********* smoke rises near a police cordon in Liverpool – Reuters/Belinda Jiao

At one point, a brave local attempted to halt the ********* walking into the no man’s land between officers and rioters.

As he held up his arms to both sides while bricks flew over him, he was moved away by officers before being hounded by a gaggle of ****** men calling him a “rat”.

For another hour it was a similar picture as officers held their ground and rioters became more and more tired, brick by brick.

Nearly half a mile from the original protest where loose cobbles from a pavement renovation were hurled at officers, the ********* eventually came to an end.

Similar scenes were replicated across the country in Hull, Stoke and Manchester, as clashes with the far-Right entered their fourth day.

They began on Tuesday evening following the

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in the Merseyside town of Southport a day earlier.

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Counter-demonstrators gather at a Stand Up to Racism rally in Liverpool – Reuters/Belinda Jiao

The unrest then

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when hundreds clashed with police outside Downing Street following a rally.

Hartlepool, County Durham, also saw unrest after there were clashes with riot police in the centre of town as people attempted to march towards a nearby mosque.

On Friday night, riots spread to Sunderland with buildings set on ***** and a number of police officers injured.

After several hours of disorder on Saturday, numbers dwindled in Liverpool as police managed to disperse rioters. There were some final attempts to goad police with the spray of stolen ***** extinguishers, and the ********* was over.

Meanwhile, most of the city had carried on as normal with stag and hen parties who had been in town making their way to the waterfront to scenes of destruction.

“There’s always something on a Saturday,” said one female reveller stumbling across lines of riot vans, who, like most of the city, was uninterested in joining the rioters.

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#smell #********** #missiles #thud #police #shields

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