Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks | Hacker News Reader

Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

cnbc.com

72 pointsmbgaxyz83 comments

Odd/interesting that they don't mention motives. They give one example of using acid to commit a mugging. Yet[1] seems to state that acid attacks are mostly male-on-female violence for relationships/shame issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_throwing#Epidemiology

So it is a real threat to tourists? It's like when you hear about high crime in some area, but it's mostly gang members killing each other -- it's a somewhat irrelevant statistic for tourists. London should release demographics on who is doing this to whom.

80% male, both perpetrators and victims: http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/crime-court/eas...

At this point it's mostly gang on gang, and probably driven by anti-knife enforcement. Scooter riders snatching phones are a bigger threat to tourists. The two have been combined recently though, using scooter + acid to hijack and steal other scooters and bikes. This in turn is driven by police not chasing two wheeled vehicles due to danger to riders, and pretty much ignoring motorcycle theft. Scooter crime is up 600% since 2015 and motorcycle theft was up 44% in 2016 over 2015.

If you're not riding a bike and you don't have your phone in your hand, you're not at significant risk.

I've had 5 scooters stolen from me in the past 8 years though.

Would have thought at that point it'd be worthwhilr putting GPS devices somewhere internal.

Behold: http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-general-news/watch-...

Two disc locks, chain, alarm, GPS tracker - none of it is enough.

Driving a bike and easing a phone is a bad thing anyways. Just as bad as car driving and phone

The guys on scooters are snatching phones from pedestrians.

The link you're quoting is describing the situation internationally, and as of six months ago. This is no doubt still a terrible problem which must be attacked politically, but the acid attacks in London during the last few months have largely been muggings.

The Independent cites some figures from the Metropolitan Police. Most of the victims and suspects are male. Most are between 15 and 29 years of age and at least some of it is gang related.

https://goo.gl/sPgr7x

It is a real threat. This kind of mugging crimes increased alarmingly especially in east London. Just reading the local newspapers you will find 5-6 such attacks each week. Do you have any source for your hypothesis?

It’s an incredibly rare threat and I doubt you have basis for 5-6 acid attacks per week in London.

I think the original title read "1.3 acid attacks per day"

Further in the comments https://www.statista.com/chart/10289/acid-attacks-in-london/ is linked with 458 incidents in 2016 in London, that's daily on average.

It happens more than daily.

We need to remember that these are Met Police numbers, and they cover a region of over 8 million people.

The top 3 London boroughs for acid attacks are ones with significantly large South Asian / Muslim communities.

Source: https://youtu.be/oHFfzVVRCm4

Most are in response to petty crime, such as stolen bikes, bumping into someone. The parties involved are rarely 'innocent' themselves having committed a petty crime against the aggrieved idiot with a bottle of acid.

Never heard of 'acid attacks' in my life (kid of the 80s, teen of the 90s) before reading about the beautiful culture of Pakistan (2001 and after). It seems London cloned its own mini-version. Horrific.

It happens in Italy as well, no pakistani required. It's just the new low-tech stealth attack weapon for the streets.

We recently moved to central-ish London (Zone 1), in a generally safe business area. A few weeks ago my wife & sister were walking home and a man started spraying them with a bottle, screaming "It's raining". Luckily it appeared to be just water.

They we're annoyed that they were wet, but now I look at this statistic, and it scares me to think that my family could have been painfully maimed.

Apparently it's now popular to do weird/stupid stuff to foreigners in public places while recording their reactions then post it online for internet glory.

I wonder what percentage of these people end up recording themselves getting their asses kicked instead? Imagine you are in a foreign city and someone sprayed yourself or a loved one with an unknown substance. I'm not talking about a child with a squirt gun innocently playing around, I mean another adult behaving differently from social norms. I have to think the probability of a violent reaction is pretty high.

Agree. A violent reaction would be justified. It's like mugging someone with a fake gun. The victim has no way to tell whether the gun is fake or whether his life is at risk, and a violent reaction would be legitimate.

Just to clarify, a violent reaction (in self defence) might be justified. It's not automatic, and would have to be proportional. For example, it might be enough to simply grab the person and hold them down on the ground until the police arrive unless it quickly became obvious that it was just a harmless prank. If they sprayed you with something harmful, or decide to resist being detained then yes, it may be necessary to use increasing physical force.

If someone threatens my life with a gun, there isn't much violence that wouldn't be appropriate.

I was attacked twice, with bare fists. I was surprised, terrified and did not act rationally. I also have 15+ years of offensive self-defense training (dojo training).

The muscular memory kicked in and I responded to the attack ferociously. I hit him once, twice, three times (blood was splashing around), then finished him with a kick which sent a few of his teeth out. The guy was laying on the floor and yelling as if he was being skinned.

I called the police, they came and I explained them that I was attacked and that this was the effect of my defense. They dutifully noted that I was afraid, shocked, terrified, etc. and beside a round to the police station to sign off a paper I never heard about the ceases again.

I believe that that the response should be proportionate, but to the clear advantage of the victim.

Being hit once and hitting 5 times back - OK. Being slapped and responding by a kick to the body and then another one to the head - OK. Someone attacks you with a knife and you shoot him back with a gun - OK. Being attacked by a 15 yo and hitting him back as if he was an adult - OK

All these is defense against unknown and there is no reason to stop before you are safe (you do not know what that person is going to do next).

Hitting someone, he is not lying on the floor unconscious and you keep on kicking his head - not OK, there was no more risk. Someone runs away with your bag and you shoot him in the head - not OK, you were not in direct danger.

What I want to say is that the proportionality should have a 10x factor in favour of the victim.

EDIT: cannot edit anymore but I meant of course

Hitting someone, he is lying (without the not)

I'm reminded of the Mike Tyson quote: "Everyone has a plan until..." So if I saw friend or family being sprayed with an unknown substance I hope I would err on the side of caution rather than exhibiting the learned helplessness that so many of my fellow Brits seem to have succumbed to. I also expect my judgment as to exactly where that line of caution is would be impaired.

> unless it quickly became obvious that it was just a harmless prank

It's not a harmless prank if the normal reaction is to hold the prankster down. Plus, you are relaxing, taking some downtime and some know-it-all-i-am-funny-oh-you-are-not-you-are-the-downer comes and stages an agression for fun. « It's a prank, bro. »

In the UK, reacting violently to any kind of attack is very likely to result in you being prosecuted for assault. If anyone is wondering why anti-social behaviour and minor criminality is now so common here it is not that decent people don't want to do anything about it, it is because the Police are often perceived to be on the same side of the assailants.

I've downvoted this, since without any statistics to back it up, it's merely repetition of a common, unsubstantiated right-wing meme.

A search along the lines of "arrested assault robber" shows many cases reported in the Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror etc where the opposite happened, but only a single case where the bystander was arrested -- in that case, because the robber died [1].

Anti-social behaviour and minor criminality is the result of decades of underinvestement in education, regions outside London, austerity and an unbalanced economy [2].

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/16/have-a-go-hero-ar...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society :-)

Thanks. The statement is indeed totally without merit. I’m surprised about the number of ill-informed comments on this issue.

Anti-social behaviour and minor criminality is the result of decades of underinvestement in education, regions outside London, austerity and an unbalanced economy [2].

Ill informed leftist ideology trumps unsubstantiated right-wing meme thanks to a random Guardian link.

I love how "austerity" is the catch all cause of all social problems, despite social welfare spending as a share of GDP massively increasing in the UK over the last 50 years.

They are. It's easier to get a good person to be honest about what they did and why than a criminal. Police are also just as criminal, the thin blue line needs to end.

Getting their asses kicked gets them more hits, so some young youtubers actually aim for that. Though I am never sure how many of them are fake.

Not even thirty, but every day I understand the world less and less.

I'm getting flashbacks to Nathan Barley...

Acid attacks are mostly related to business disputes, sex, marriage, robbery and honor disputes. The stats and location's where the acid attacks take place:

https://www.statista.com/chart/10289/acid-attacks-in-london/

and

https://www.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-media/disclosure_...

Thanks, googled those top 3 trouble spots mentioned and they all seem to be in east london.

Thanks for the links.

What scares me is that over 1/3 of incidents were marked as "Investigation complete; no suspect identified".

And only 18% of attacks (156/833) resulted in a "Charged/Summoned" outcome.

Are there any patterns in the data? I'd like to find out:

1) If these are people who have commited a crime before 2) Were raised in certain cultures/locations 3) Are gangs

data, stats and patterns?

sounds like xenophobia to me, mate.

Probably the "asians" again /s

> "Bystanders who come to the aid of the victim of an attack can have an important role in minimising further injury," [..]

> They urged bystanders to remove victims from exposure as soon as possible and apply "copious" amounts of water on the affected area, "to minimize the long-term effects of scarring and need for surgical reconstruction."

The "'copious' amounts of water on the affected area" part can't be stressed enough and also that the victim is likely too shocked to do this themselves. Also, try to not get any acid in your mouth and avoid to swallow it under any circumstances.

I attended a talk by Katie Piper[1] last year and someone asked her what her first reaction was after the attack happened. She said that she looked down her body and saw her clothes dissolving and her first worry was that people could see her naked. She also said the the attack took place in a busy street [2] but it took a long time until anyone helped her.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Piper

[2] I think she said High Street in her talk but Wikipedia disagrees.

Anyone know if it would be possible to neutralize an acid attack in a sprayable fashion with baking soda?/stabilizer?, like the opposite of pepper spray that bystanders can use since water isn't always accessible?

This is extremely likely to cause severe burns from the heat of reaction. Neutralizing strong acids is a violent high temperature reaction (in chemistry labs the biggest danger is you flash boil the solution / generate a bunch of gas and it explodes onto you).

Water - a lot of water - is the best answer.

I want to second that this is the correct answer.

It's really common in chem labs for some grad student to immediately think "neutralize!" And it's always wrong: neutralizing releases a lot of heat, and just makes things worse.

Water, water, and water are always the correct response. This can't be stressed enough. If you think you've washed long enough, good, you're a quarter of the way there.

Further to the (correct) comment about the heat released by the neutralisation reaction not all attacks are with acid. Some are using strong alkalis e.g. drain cleaners.

Water is safest.

> I think she said High Street in her talk but Wikipedia disagrees

"High street" can be a general term for the road with lots of shops on at the centre of a community, it's doesn't have to be called "High Street". Golders Green Road qualifies.

(In business, it's also a term for all consumer retail businesses, for example "High street sales fell 10% compared to last year".)

For what it's worth, "high street" means the main commercial thoroughfare of an area. A high street would have lots of shops, banks, and restaurants--and thus a lot of foot traffic too, as opposed to a side street or residential area.

Many high streets are in fact called "High Street", but the term can be used regardless of the actual name as a description.

Does anyone have a link to the data (which is only mentioned once in the article).

I strongly agree that journalists should link to their sources of data.

It seems these figures were "obtained by BBC" through FoI request, not part of normal Met Police data sets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39328233

Here's an older FoI request, but it might not be the one the BBC are talking about: https://beta.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-media/disclosure...

UK crime statistics come in two forms.

1) Police records, which is what this article is talking about. In general these are not seen as statistically robust because they rely on people reporting a crime to the police, and the police recording it. Police forces have improved their recording in recent years.

Here's a link to the Met Police stats: https://beta.met.police.uk/stats-and-data/

Here's a link to press release: http://news.met.police.uk/news/crime-statistics-for-2016-to-...

2) Office for National Statistics. These use a crime survey, and are seen as reliable.

Forgot to include the ONS link! Here it is: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...

Does this represent a sui generis rise of violence or is this the result of substitution of weapons to commit crimes (like mugging, say) that were already happening?

The latter. After a "scourge" of knife crime that reached the level of almost one death a week (mostly gang-related) the city cracked down on knife crimes and arrests for possession of same. This is the substitution that carries with it a slight bit of anti-immigrant dog whistle given some previous high-profile cases of acid attacks being used in "honour" crimes against women.

Carrying a knife in a public area is generally illegal, whereas a bottle of something that looks like water in a casual inspection isn't sufficient grounds for concern. Also, the use of police stop and search powers have fallen dramatically in the past year because of a concern over ethic bias in the statistics.

An offensive weapon is any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person.

Ban guns, ban bread knives, ...

London has fallen. Glad I left three years ago.

This is mince.

Knives were banned because of an surge in knife crime. Guns have obviously been banned for an age. I suspect you have an ulterior motive.

I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the people wielding them.

These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law abiding citizens.

If the ban would only affect law abiding citizens, then why aren't the criminals described here using already banned knives or guns?

I think I expressed myself poorly. They aren't using banned things because they are banned. Instead, they go the easier route of killing people with non-banned things.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57

I dunno, that feels like it's working.

I read a statistic stating that somewhere around 80% of the violent crime in America takes place in about 5% of the counties.

In other words, there are certain niche demographics in America that are pulling up those gun murder stats, and it's generally not a problem for most people who enjoy 2nd Amendment protections.

This article:

http://www.ofm.wa.gov/researchbriefs/2016/brief079.pdf

shows that 5 counties in the state of Washington account for almost all the state's violent crime.

This chart

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm.htm

shows a wide variation among US states. Curiously, some of the states with the lowest stats have essentially no gun control. So its more complicated that it might seem.

Gun control is not a magic solution for firearm killings (after all it only affects law-abiding citizens who, by definition, are not murderers).

E.g.: here in Brazil it is almost impossible to legally own a firearm but we had 212 firearm-murders per million people in 2014 (Source: http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/08/o-brasil-e-o-pais-que-mais... ).

So seems like it's easy in Brazil to illegally own a firearm. I suspect the UK avoided a similar outcome by not only making it illegal, but also policing in such a way as to make it difficult to illegally own a firearm.

Add in the Switzerland and Norway figures and things look less clear. But here is a large dataset with some nice infographics.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-ho...

It's weird to see a bunch of people trying to refute this very clear point: we don't have many guns and so we have very little gun crime.

  gun murders per million people UK:  0.236
  gun murders per million people US: 32.57

You are being very very selective with the data. Assuming good faith please refer to the rather larger dataset with gun ownership and gun crime data for many countries provided in another post.

Is this peculiar to London or do other places in the UK have the same problem?

So far it seems pretty peculiar to London (at least within the UK). Of course, London is a huge part of the UK: something like 10% of our population live here.

This is a Pakistani Muslim problem. So avoid bigger cities. I lived for 10 months in Birmingham, I had to leave because even though I'm a grown man I could not tolerate the terror of people throwing rocks at your window at night. Besides the area around the main Concert Hall there is no particular "British" culture left in that city and acid attacks are definitely not done by local Brits. Nobody says anything because they are scared to be labeled as racists. It's a shame.

> I could not tolerate the terror of people throwing rocks at your window at night.

Why, maybe to drive you out of the area?

That is bullshit there are plenty of areas in Birmingham that have equally scummy white people in them. Also if people are throwing rocks at you, you are def in the wrong area, it's a city there are some places you can't go, it's a bit like walking through inner city LA and being surprised you got robbed.

This is the first time I've heard this kind of argument here on HN. It sounds an awfully lot like victim blaming and I'm unsure why you think it acceptable that certain people not be allowed into certain parts of a city.

Also, as a South LA resident, LA doesn't really have an inner city, or at least it hasn't been the area traditionally known for high crime.

> Also, as a South LA resident, LA doesn't really have an inner city, or at least it hasn't been the area traditionally known for high crime.

The phrase "inner city" is not geographical; it's a code phrase for a predominantly black neighborhood, or in some cases, a lower-income neighborhood.

Maybe in America, but in Britain it means the dense area surrounding the city centre. That can be wealthy, poor, or mixed.

In Britain, we might say "local authority", "council housing", "council estate", but I can't think of a euphemism.

I'm aware of the origin of the phrase, and how it relates to white flight, urban deindustrialization, housing policy, specifically public housing policy, and housing discrimination, particularly as it affected the urban core of major cities. It absolutely does have it's origin in geography, which itself can often be weaponized as a tool for segregation. LA has it's own set of problems regarding these issues, but I've never heard then described as "inner city" problems, that's all I was trying to point out.

On the other hand, if the poster I was replying to meant to imply that you can't be around poor black folks without being robbed, I'd prefer they come out directly and say that, rather than hide behind coded euphemisms.

I agree there are "scummy white people" too. But they only get aggressive on alcohol after sport events. They are definitely not the ones throwing acid at people. This is just a different level violence.

I lived in Selly Oak. I don't know if this area is particular bad. At least the rent was high enough.

Selly Oak was once quite a nice place, not so much now. And I dunno if this is a new level of violence, it's just changed because you can't carry a knife anymore. But the premise that only Pakistanis carry out acid attacks is wrong. There are racial divides in Birmingham but violence and crime is pretty universal.

This is a sham comment and you are a liar. The idea that there is no British culture in Birmingham is bald-faced misrepresentation and you should be ashamed of it.

Meh. Birmingham is big I probably couldn't see more than 5% of it. And I agree there are "islands" of British culture left. But you have to specifically look for them. And I'm the kind of guy who visited a concert in the Symphony Hall almost every other week (even though I was probably the youngest person in the audience).

Wikipedia says Selly Oak "had a below-average percentage of ethnic minorities with only 15.9% of the population consisting of ethnic minorities compared with 29.6% for Birmingham in general."

What British culture did you expect to find, beyond the concert hall? I assume there are pubs, sports teams, museums and so on.

In any case, the south Asian culture in Britain is also British culture. Example: Balti.

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