23: Brixton Uprising

By the Sunday of the Brixton Riots/Uprising in April 1981 many of the police were exhausted and seemed to have lost any sense of professionalism. I saw a van pull up, perhaps ten feet away from where I was standing. Policemen jumped out of the back and began weighing into the crowd with their truncheons, hitting people who were doing nothing more than observing familiar streets become a battleground. I should add that as a white male in my twenties I didn’t feel any special privilege and I walked away (never run) as quickly as I could.