Acid Row [antikvár]

The riot lost momentum as news of the butchery spread through the estate. The details were vague. No one knew how many had been killed or how, but castration, lynching and a machete attack were all mentioned. The streets began to empty rapidly. Collective guilt was felt, if not openly expressed, and no one was inclined to face retribution for murder.The youths on the barricades who had held the police at bay with petrol bombs took a similar view. They would argue afterwards, and with some justification, that they hadn't known what was going on, but when word of the frenzied attack filtered through they, too, melted away. It was one thing to fight an honourable batde with the enemy, quite another to be accused of aiding and abetting insanity in Humbert Street.The headlines the next morning - 29 July - were lurid. 'Drink-crazed lynch mob?fbes on the rampage' . iSexpervert butchered* . . . '5 hours of savagery leaves 3 dead, 189 injured . . . The outside world gave a shudder of disgust. Leader-writers lined up the usual suspects. Government. Police. Social workers. Education chiefs. Across the country, morale in the vocational services reached an all-time low.But of the two thousand rioters who jostled for a view of the killing spree, not one would ever admit to being there u . .1