The mob mentality

As you've probably heard already, there was an incredibly destructive and violent riot in London on St. Patrick's day. They consisted of a mob of Fanshawe College students, as well as others. The group kept growing in size as the night progressed, getting up to around a thousand people. The damage done was tremendous, and thirteen have been arrested, with at least eight of them being Fanshawe students.

The massive mob of people flipped a TV news truck (as well as other cars) upside down and lit them on fire, threw smashed beer bottles, bricks, wooden planks, tires, rims, and other items at police and fire fighters, shone laser pointers in the police's eyes, and were very violent.

The report says that a number of people were burned or otherwise injured as a result of the riot. Rioters apparently just wanted to "egg on the police" to try to make them mad.


Personally, I think the actions of these partiers is absolutely ridiculous and childish that they thought they could get away with this. It can be assumed that many of them were very drunk however, so their thought processes may not have been clear. What happened was incredibly irresponsible, and I don't even understand how something like this could get so out of control.


I guess the "mob mentality" is partly to blame for this mess- where people think that just because everyone else is doing it, it somehow makes it okay for them to join in as well. They can get so caught up in the moment that all sense of right and wrong is lost, and terrible decisions can be made.

For more pictures and an article, see here.