A Tottenham notebook

Every reporter knows the feeling. I’m watching television at around 11.30 p.m. on Saturday night when my phone begins buzzing. It’s the distinctive number of the New York Times newsroom: 111 111 1111. Answering means being pitched into chaos. ‘We’re hearing of some unrest in Tottenham,’ says the voice. ‘Can you get there?’ I sigh, jump in a taxi and ask to go as close to the local police station as possible. I know I have arrived when I see a burning car with 20-foot flames jumping out. It crackles and hisses. There’s no fire brigade, no cordon around the car. What, I wonder, is going on? I ask a bystander, a man with gold teeth. He explains that ‘these people want justice’. He gestures to 50 or so young men with their hoods up and bandanas covering their faces, squaring up to riot police in the distance. One of those young men, breathless from throwing fireworks, bricks and bottles at the officers, tells me he is protesting because a black man, Mark Duggan, had been shot by police earlier in the week.