I'm a total mongrel - pick a continent and I've ancestry there...
My point is big picture. Read up on the origin of the word "thugs", then try to understand Thugee history from a their viewpoint, rather than that of the British who exterminated them - and that alone hopefully illuminates where I'm coming from.
I agree that class is an element of this, but it is secondary to the broader issue of divergent cultural narrative, which is being driven by unending segregation and increasing isolation of social castes from each other. As America still has class divides along strongly racial lines, this conflates into a race issue which dates back to the triangle trade.
I suppose the basement issue here is dehumanisation. Power imbalances perpetuate it.
Just don't call them thugs. Rioters, sure. Pissed off, disillusioned people with no future to lose, sure. But don't call them thugs. You're buying into the destructive narrative by doing so.