Death of teens causes terrifying riot with overturned cars and cops pelted

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Riots broke out in Cardiff last night (May 22) after two teens were killed in in a car crash.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales said rumours had been swirling that claimed the teens had been chased by police in the moments leading up to their deaths.

The incident on Snowden Road, Ely, at about 6pm on Monday saw tensions reach boiling point leading officers to face what they described as “large-scale disorder”.

Cars were torched as events got out of hand and trouble from youths is understood to have raged for hours, leaving some officers with minor injuries.

A helicopter was witnessed overhead as fires burned and some people rioting threw things at cops – including fireworks.

Photos show a car was set ablaze shortly after midnight and mounted officers were spotted near Ely Police Station amid rumours it could have been a target.

"Arrests are being made," police said in a tweet at the time.

Speaking to the BBC, South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael said people would be brought to account following the disturbances.

“My understanding is that there was a road traffic accident involving two teenagers on an off-road bike or scooter and sadly they died,” he said.

“That’s an incident obviously that is being investigated in its own right.

“And that appears to have sparked, for reasons that aren’t clear, the disorder that you’ve referred to in which something like a dozen officers were injured, fortunately none of them life-threatening, and the connection between the two is far from clear.

“So obviously there’s going to be investigations going on this morning to try and establish what happened.

“It would appear that there were rumours, and those rumours became rife, of a police chase, which wasn’t the case.

“And I think it illustrates the speed with which rumours can run around with the activity that goes on on social media nowadays, and that events can get out of hand.”

He continued: “Obviously very frightening for local people. And there were a lot of calls to the police expressing concern about what was going on.

“Ely is an area which has a lot of deprivation, but it’s also a very warm community.

“I think what we have is an incident that involved some people and a proper investigation is needed to establish exactly what happened.”

Mr Michael claims that by the time officers arrived at the scene of the incident that claimed the lives, the crash “had already occurred”.

John Urquhart, general secretary of the UK Harmony Party told PA: “The vast majority of people who were stood in that street were stood there because they wanted to know what would happen next. There were a very small number of people actually doing any sort of violence”.

Speaking about the close-knit nature of the community in Ely, he said: “When you start to see it in context, it’s emotions that have built up and bottled up and, eventually, I think the police just brought too many people or were too visible.”

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