Posted on the other thread:
Wow.
Went up there about 11ish when I saw posts about what was happening. Big stand off on the Chelt Road/Glos Road junction with lines of cops and around 15 vans, many from Gwent police. Bottles and rocks being thrown. Police started pushing rioters down Ashley Road and a giant game of cat and mouse started in streets between Ashley Road and City Road, turning a Stokes Croft situation into a St Pauls situation. Ended up back on Stokes Croft with police charges, crowd scattered and ran, stand off resumed. Everywhere bins were being emptied of ammunition and set alight as barricades. More side street cat and mouse on the Kingsdown side around Nine Tree Hill. Eventually the police fucked off en masse with the inevitable result of rioters descending on Tesco and putting the windows in. Cop 4wd abandoned near Tesco with the inevitable result - a door was being ripped off before it got rescued when the police came screaming back in, more scattering and running, more barricades, more cat and mouse. An hour or so later, cops fucked off again, more destruction of Tesco, shutters being pulled up, main sign paint bombed, small sign ripped down. Cops returned, more scattering down Ashley Road. Dying down around 5am.
Telepathic Heights squat still occupied, lots of debris around Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road, Ashley Road and City Road. Local residents coming out with brooms to sweep up and giving the cops a piece of their mind. No shops/take aways touched other than Tesco which has been well and truly smashed up on the outside. No idea whether anybody got in or not - though I saw some free fags being passed around so I suspect they did. Didn't seem to be many nickings though I did see one or two.
Yes, it was a proper riot. A smallish one but proper all the same. The cops dropped a massive bollock tonight