76 Arrested in London Die-In for Garner

Why can't the majority of black people and the rioters accept that the reason blacks are much more likely to get into trouble with the police is because they are much more likely to commit criminal acts, both serious and petty, and the reason they are much more likely to be harmed is because of the way they interact with the police, resisting arrest or even assaulting the officers?

The question is rhetorical. They don't accept this because it's always difficult for every human being to recognise one's faults - or, as in this case, the faults of the group one identifies with. For rioters and looters there are added motives: regardless of whether they really believe that Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin et al were victims of the police or of their own behaviour, they get a reward, material or psychological or both, from screaming and stealing.

Now the "protests" have come to London. Last night at the Westfield Shopping Centre (Europe's largest), in West London, demonstrators staged a "die in" over the death of Eric Garner and clashed with the police. 76 were arrested, which is an indication of the high numbers involved in this ridiculous pantomime.

But it wasn't just idiotic, it was deeply damaging. In such a bad economic climate, shops lost thousands of pounds of revenue from Christmas sales. And dozens of police and security guards were deployed, who could have been used to fight the crime that these "protesters" are implicitly supporting and now committing.

High-end stores and outlets at the shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush were forced to close, with terrified customers and staff barricaded inside, as no fewer than 600 militants staged a mass "die in" by sprawling on the floor in the centre’s atrium from 6pm yesterday. They chanted Garner’s last words as he was restrained by chokehold: "I can’t breathe!".

I wish we could easily gather so many people to demonstrate for worthy causes instead.

Several of these criminals "charged around" in front of terrified shoppers.

The arrests were for criminal damage and public order offences.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Shortly after 8.20pm, a group of protesters broke away from a larger group and attempted to force entry to the shopping centre assaulting security staff and causing damage to property... one man was further arrested on suspicion of assault."

A shop worker said: “It was pretty scary. They were charging around and we just didn’t know what would happen next. We thought, to protect everyone, we would lock the doors."

Witnesses commented that it was over the top.

Some questioned the point of the “die-in”, and a police officer told a demonstrator: “This is the worst protest ever. There’s no message.”