LONDON — Officials in the northern English city of Leeds say order has been restored after a night of unrest that began when police and local government workers intervened in a “family incident” and residents poured into the streets in protest.
Rioters set a bus on fire and tipped over a police car in what police described as a “serious disorder incident” that began at about 5 p.m. on Thursday in the city’s Harehills area. A large number of officers were deployed to the area and the “full weight of the law” will be used against those responsible, West Yorkshire Police said in a statement.
Tom Riordan, chief executive of the Leeds City Council, said calm was restored by about 1 a.m. and authorities have already begun to clean up the damage.
“There was a family incident earlier in the day that the police attended and our officials attended that a lot of the community got concerned about,” Riordan said in an interview with the BBC. “And that appeared to be the trigger of concern for groups of people being concerned about what had happened.”
Riordan declined to provide specifics about the incident, but said authorities would always intervene when children were at risk. The community “probably misinterpreted” the situation, he said.
Police said they initially responded to a report of a disturbance involving children and “agency workers.” As more people began arriving at the scene, a decision was made to move the children and workers to a safer location.
But the situation continued to escalate, with crowds gathering and pockets of disorder breaking out. No injuries have been reported, police said.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who is responsible for law enforcement in Britain, said she was “appalled at the shocking scenes” in Leeds overnight.
“Disorder of this nature has no place in our society,” she said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
