
Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks - mbgaxyz
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/04/fears-for-tourists-in-london-as-acid-attacks-escalate-in-recent-weeks.html
======
MichaelGG
Odd/interesting that they don't mention motives. They give one example of
using acid to commit a mugging. Yet[1] seems to state that acid attacks are
mostly male-on-female violence for relationships/shame issues.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_throwing#Epidemiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_throwing#Epidemiology)

So it is a real threat to tourists? It's like when you hear about high crime
in some area, but it's mostly gang members killing each other -- it's a
somewhat irrelevant statistic for tourists. London should release demographics
on who is doing this to whom.

~~~
barrkel
80% male, both perpetrators and victims:
[http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/crime-
court/eas...](http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/crime-court/east-
london-named-as-acid-attack-hotspot-and-a-third-of-victims-are-
asian-1-5115133)

At this point it's mostly gang on gang, and probably driven by anti-knife
enforcement. Scooter riders snatching phones are a bigger threat to tourists.
The two have been combined recently though, using scooter + acid to hijack and
steal other scooters and bikes. This in turn is driven by police not chasing
two wheeled vehicles due to danger to riders, and pretty much ignoring
motorcycle theft. Scooter crime is up 600% since 2015 and motorcycle theft was
up 44% in 2016 over 2015.

If you're not riding a bike and you don't have your phone in your hand, you're
not at significant risk.

I've had 5 scooters stolen from me in the past 8 years though.

~~~
Brakenshire
Would have thought at that point it'd be worthwhilr putting GPS devices
somewhere internal.

~~~
barrkel
Behold: [http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-general-
news/watch-...](http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-general-news/watch-
motorcyclist-threatened-knife-and-hammer-armed-gang-steals-%C2%A312000)

Two disc locks, chain, alarm, GPS tracker - none of it is enough.

------
novalis78
Never heard of 'acid attacks' in my life (kid of the 80s, teen of the 90s)
before reading about the beautiful culture of Pakistan (2001 and after). It
seems London cloned its own mini-version. Horrific.

~~~
toyg
It happens in Italy as well, no pakistani required. It's just the new low-tech
stealth attack weapon for the streets.

------
otp124
We recently moved to central-ish London (Zone 1), in a generally safe business
area. A few weeks ago my wife & sister were walking home and a man started
spraying them with a bottle, screaming "It's raining". Luckily it appeared to
be just water.

They we're annoyed that they were wet, but now I look at this statistic, and
it scares me to think that my family could have been painfully maimed.

~~~
gtirloni
Apparently it's now popular to do weird/stupid stuff to foreigners in public
places while recording their reactions then post it online for internet glory.

~~~
tombrossman
I wonder what percentage of these people end up recording themselves getting
their asses kicked instead? Imagine you are in a foreign city and someone
sprayed yourself or a loved one with an unknown substance. I'm not talking
about a child with a squirt gun innocently playing around, I mean another
adult behaving differently from social norms. I have to think the probability
of a violent reaction is pretty high.

~~~
dazc
In the UK, reacting violently to any kind of attack is very likely to result
in you being prosecuted for assault. If anyone is wondering why anti-social
behaviour and minor criminality is now so common here it is not that decent
people don't want to do anything about it, it is because the Police are often
perceived to be on the same side of the assailants.

~~~
Symbiote
I've downvoted this, since without any statistics to back it up, it's merely
repetition of a common, unsubstantiated right-wing meme.

A search along the lines of "arrested assault robber" shows many cases
reported in the Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror etc where the _opposite_ happened, but
only a single case where the bystander was arrested -- in that case, because
the robber died [1].

Anti-social behaviour and minor criminality is the result of decades of
underinvestement in education, regions outside London, austerity and an
unbalanced economy [2].

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/16/have-a-go-hero-
ar...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/16/have-a-go-hero-arrested-
death-suspected-armed-robber-tackled/)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/society](https://www.theguardian.com/society)
:-)

~~~
dazc
Anti-social behaviour and minor criminality is the result of decades of
underinvestement in education, regions outside London, austerity and an
unbalanced economy [2].

Ill informed leftist ideology trumps unsubstantiated right-wing meme thanks to
a random Guardian link.

------
dagaci
Acid attacks are mostly related to business disputes, sex, marriage, robbery
and honor disputes. The stats and location's where the acid attacks take
place:

[https://www.statista.com/chart/10289/acid-attacks-in-
london/](https://www.statista.com/chart/10289/acid-attacks-in-london/)

and

[https://www.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-
media/disclosure_...](https://www.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-
media/disclosure_2017/may_2017/information-rights-unit--acid-attacks-recorded-
by-the-mps-during-2015-to-april-2017-calendar-years#page=5&zoom=90,-7,719)

~~~
sinaa
Thanks for the links.

What scares me is that over 1/3 of incidents were marked as "Investigation
complete; no suspect identified".

And only 18% of attacks (156/833) resulted in a "Charged/Summoned" outcome.

------
acdjuiamadfn
Are there any patterns in the data? I'd like to find out:

1) If these are people who have commited a crime before 2) Were raised in
certain cultures/locations 3) Are gangs

~~~
sattoshi
Probably the "asians" again /s

------
weinzierl
> "Bystanders who come to the aid of the victim of an attack can have an
> important role in minimising further injury," [..]

> They urged bystanders to remove victims from exposure as soon as possible
> and apply "copious" amounts of water on the affected area, "to minimize the
> long-term effects of scarring and need for surgical reconstruction."

The _" 'copious' amounts of water on the affected area"_ part can't be
stressed enough and also that the victim is likely too shocked to do this
themselves. Also, try to not get any acid in your mouth and avoid to swallow
it under any circumstances.

I attended a talk by Katie Piper[1] last year and someone asked her what her
first reaction was after the attack happened. She said that she looked down
her body and saw her clothes dissolving and her first worry was that people
could see her naked. She also said the the attack took place in a busy street
[2] but it took a long time until anyone helped her.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Piper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Piper)

[2] I think she said High Street in her talk but Wikipedia disagrees.

~~~
devwastaken
Anyone know if it would be possible to neutralize an acid attack in a
sprayable fashion with baking soda?/stabilizer?, like the opposite of pepper
spray that bystanders can use since water isn't always accessible?

~~~
XorNot
This is extremely likely to cause severe burns from the heat of reaction.
Neutralizing strong acids is a violent high temperature reaction (in chemistry
labs the biggest danger is you flash boil the solution / generate a bunch of
gas and it explodes onto you).

Water - a lot of water - is the best answer.

~~~
arkades
I want to second that this is the correct answer.

It's really common in chem labs for some grad student to immediately think
"neutralize!" And it's always wrong: neutralizing releases a lot of heat, and
just makes things worse.

Water, water, and water are always the correct response. This can't be
stressed enough. If you think you've washed long enough, good, you're a
quarter of the way there.

------
dan1234
Does anyone have a link to the data (which is only mentioned once in the
article).

~~~
DanBC
I strongly agree that journalists should link to their sources of data.

It seems these figures were "obtained by BBC" through FoI request, not part of
normal Met Police data sets.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
london-39328233](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39328233)

Here's an older FoI request, but it might not be the one the BBC are talking
about: [https://beta.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-
media/disclosure...](https://beta.met.police.uk/globalassets/foi-
media/disclosure_2017/january_2017/information-rights-unit---acidammoniaother-
noxious-substance-attacks-over-the-past-5-years)

UK crime statistics come in two forms.

1) Police records, which is what this article is talking about. In general
these are not seen as statistically robust because they rely on people
reporting a crime to the police, and the police recording it. Police forces
have improved their recording in recent years.

Here's a link to the Met Police stats: [https://beta.met.police.uk/stats-and-
data/](https://beta.met.police.uk/stats-and-data/)

Here's a link to press release: [http://news.met.police.uk/news/crime-
statistics-for-2016-to-...](http://news.met.police.uk/news/crime-statistics-
for-2016-to-2017-235111)

2) Office for National Statistics. These use a crime survey, and are seen as
reliable.

~~~
DanBC
Forgot to include the ONS link! Here it is:
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice)

------
junkculture
Is this peculiar to London or do other places in the UK have the same problem?

~~~
sprash
This is a Pakistani Muslim problem. So avoid bigger cities. I lived for 10
months in Birmingham, I had to leave because even though I'm a grown man I
could not tolerate the terror of people throwing rocks at your window at
night. Besides the area around the main Concert Hall there is no particular
"British" culture left in that city and acid attacks are definitely not done
by local Brits. Nobody says anything because they are scared to be labeled as
racists. It's a shame.

~~~
foop2
That is bullshit there are plenty of areas in Birmingham that have equally
scummy white people in them. Also if people are throwing rocks at you, you are
def in the wrong area, it's a city there are some places you can't go, it's a
bit like walking through inner city LA and being surprised you got robbed.

~~~
sprash
I agree there are "scummy white people" too. But they only get aggressive on
alcohol after sport events. They are definitely not the ones throwing acid at
people. This is just a different level violence.

I lived in Selly Oak. I don't know if this area is particular bad. At least
the rent was high enough.

~~~
foop2
Selly Oak was once quite a nice place, not so much now. And I dunno if this is
a new level of violence, it's just changed because you can't carry a knife
anymore. But the premise that only Pakistanis carry out acid attacks is wrong.
There are racial divides in Birmingham but violence and crime is pretty
universal.

------
kyrre
Ban guns, ban bread knives, ...

London has fallen. Glad I left three years ago.

~~~
matthewmacleod
This is mince.

Knives were banned because of an surge in knife crime. Guns have obviously
been banned for an age. I suspect you have an ulterior motive.

~~~
sattoshi
I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the
people wielding them.

These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law
abiding citizens.

~~~
DanBC
gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US:
32.57

I dunno, that feels like it's working.

~~~
vonuebelgarten
Gun control is not a magic solution for firearm killings (after all it only
affects law-abiding citizens who, by definition, are not murderers).

E.g.: here in Brazil it is almost impossible to legally own a firearm but we
had 212 firearm-murders per million people in 2014 (Source:
[http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/08/o-brasil-e-o-pais-que-
mais...](http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/08/o-brasil-e-o-pais-que-mais-mata-
por-arma-de-fogo-no-mundo/) ).

~~~
EliRivers
So seems like it's easy in Brazil to _illegally_ own a firearm. I suspect the
UK avoided a similar outcome by not only making it illegal, but also policing
in such a way as to make it difficult to illegally own a firearm.

------
zkms
Does this represent a sui generis rise of violence or is this the result of
substitution of weapons to commit crimes (like mugging, say) that were already
happening?

~~~
evgen
The latter. After a "scourge" of knife crime that reached the level of almost
one death a week (mostly gang-related) the city cracked down on knife crimes
and arrests for possession of same. This is the substitution that carries with
it a slight bit of anti-immigrant dog whistle given some previous high-profile
cases of acid attacks being used in "honour" crimes against women.

