RIOTERS are hurling bricks at police in Hartlepool just hours after violent clashes in Downing Street sparked by the Southport stabbing.
Footage circulating on social media shows multiple stand-offs between officers and hundreds of demonstrators in the town.
Large crowds were seen being driven back by police decked out in riot gear and carrying shields.
They faced a bombardment of projectiles with bricks and bottles flying in chaotic scenes sparked by the Southport stabbings on Monday.
Witnesses say a metal beam was also launched at officers during the unrest.
Men in balaclavas are said to be hitting the police with huge wooden bats.
And locals claimed some demonstrators were even throwing themselves against officers.
It comes after riots outside Downing Street tonight saw flares and bricks hurled near the gates of the Prime Minister’s residence.
There appears to have been at least a dozen arrests, with protesters being detained as police drive them into Trafalgar Square.
Several men were wrestled to the floor and handcuffed, and police are now attempting to open Whitehall to traffic.
Yesterday’s riots in Southport saw protesters try and attack a mosque with police vehicles set ablaze.
Cops suffered serious injuries when bricks, stones and bottles were thrown in chaotic scenes.
Merseyside Police said more than 50 officers were injured amid the disorder.
The rioting followed a frenzied stabbing attack in Southport on Monday at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club.
The attack saw Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, fatally stabbed.
Speculation about the alleged attacker’s identity circulated online, seeing the tension that already existed after Monday’s horrific attack explode into riots.
Despite social media claims, cops stressed that the suspect was born in Cardiff.
The mum of Elsie Stancombe – one of three victims so far from the attack – had condemned the violence and urged protesters to stop.
In a message widely shared online, Jenni Stancombe said: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please stop the violence in Southport tonight.
“The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”
By Imran Ahmed
After we heard the first shocking reports that children had been stabbed in Southport, we went to social media to try and find out the truth – who did this and why?
But the problem with our reliance on social media as a source of information is that all platforms are designed in ways that show us lies first and the truth last.
Journalists working for a newspaper or broadcaster try to tell us what they can prove, which can be unclear in the immediate wake of a tragedy.
Social media platforms, instead, look at how much engagement their posts get.
That’s because they don’t actually care about the value to society of that information, rather the value to them.
Let’s be clear, social media companies are to blame. They let people break their rules with impunity.
The reason they do this is simple: hate and lies are big business for social media.
That’s how the truth loses, and the lies of extremists and weirdos enter the mainstream.
Social media companies pretend this is complicated, but the basic solutions are simple.
First, we need to force these companies to come clean on how their algorithms boost dangerous lies.
Second, we need to hold them accountable with fines and penalties.
American social media giants are to blame for this chaos. It’s them, not the people of Southport, who should be paying for the cleanup and coppers’ medical bills.
Before anyone could report the truth in Stockport, selfish and cynical losers were using social media to exploit this tragedy and push hateful lies.
With zero evidence, they claimed that Muslims were behind the attack and that the police were hiding the truth.
And they know that the more outrageous the lie, the more people will see it.
The consequences were plain to see, as gangs of thugs descended on Southport, shamefully using the deaths of three young girls to whip up hate and attack the police.
