Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has been intrigued by the journalism of Vice , an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn , New York.VBS.TV is Vice 's broadband television network . The reports , which are produced solely by Vice , reflect a very transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers . London ( VBS.TV ) -- On Saturday , Aug. 6 , people gathered in Tottenham to protest the police shooting of a 29-year-old local man . It quickly escalated into riots , looting and arson . Those Tottenham riots have now inspired copycats . Early on Monday evening the whole city rose up against law and order . Shops were looted , huge buildings were burned , people were pulled from their cars and homes were invaded . All while our Parliament , London 's mayor and Britain 's prime minister were away on holiday . And now it 's spreading , as Liverpool , Birmingham , Bristol and many other cities have burst into violence . The riots may have begun as a protest , but now they 're just mindless and brutal , with gangs roaming the streets in balaclavas , wielding bats and bottles . We were filming as Monday 's mob sparked into action after police stopped and searched two men in front of a nervous crowd in Hackney , London . Thirty minutes later , kids were tearing the street apart , smashing up opticians , sports shops , raiding supermarkets for ammo , attacking busses and looting a tree surgeon 's van for wooden weapons . See the rest of Hackney : Systems Overload at VBS.TV . As the police have been overrun , most of the nation have submitted authority to the mob , with only East London 's Hasidic , Muslim and Turkish communities beating the crowd back from shops and mosques . By Tuesday , many people were calling for the army to be deployed and a curfew to be brought in to combat the anarchy , but instead tonight the police were allowed to have a second go at controlling the streets . While only 6,000 cops were active on Monday , yesterday 16,000 police armed with rubber bullets greeted any would-be rioters in London . It was a tactic that paid off as the city became a ghost town , with only isolated disturbances . However , elsewhere in England it was a different matter . Manchester saw sustained looting by more than a thousand youths , cars were torched in Liverpool , and three men died in Birmingham after being hit by a car as they defended their mosque .
The shooting of a policeman in London sparks protests that quickly turn violent . Police goes into the thick of rioting in Hackney . They smash storefronts , attack vehicles , search for weapons and ammunition .