A 16 year-old has been charged with murder during the London Riots

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A 16 year-old has been charged with murder during the London Riots

(LONDON) — British police have charged a 16-year-old boy with murdering a retiree during an attack by rioters in London last week, as the government said officers would get better training and stronger powers to deal with a new and unpredictable era of street disturbances.
The boy, who can't be named because of his age, is accused of killing 68-year-old Richard Bowes, who was found lying in a street during riots in Ealing, west London, on Aug. 8. He died of head injuries three days later.

See photos of rioting in London.
The boy's mother has been charged with obstructing the police investigation.
The suspect appeared in a London youth court Tuesday and was ordered detained until his next hearing Thursday.

Five people died during violence that ravaged English cities last week, including three men hit by a car in Birmingham, central England as they protected local shops from looters. Two men and a teenage boy have been charged with murdering Haroon Jahan, 20, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31.

Several suspects have also been questioned about the death of a man who was shot in the head during rioting in south London.

Across the country, some 3,000 people have been arrested — more than half of them in London — and about 1,400 of those charged with riot-related offenses.

Courts opened around-the-clock for several days to deal with the flood of suspects.
Rioting began in London Aug. 6 and spread to several other English cities. Police were criticized for responding too slowly, particularly in London, but eventually deployed huge numbers of officers at riot zones to quell the mayhem.

Police said they would keep up an expanded presence on the streets of London over the coming days, although the force didn't give a detailed breakdown. Scotland Yard said many of the additional officers would be assigned to hunt those involved in the riots.

Home Secretary Theresa May said Britain had entered a "faster moving and more unpredictable" era of public order policing, and promised forces would get new instructions about training riot officers and responding to trouble. "We will make sure police have the powers they need," she said — including wider powers to impose curfews.

The government has already floated a raft of new powers, including allowing police to order anyone suspected of being a thug to remove their mask or hood, evicting troublemakers from subsidized housing and temporarily disabling cell phone instant messaging services.
David Stringer contributed to this report.

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