Looks like Brum is on the edge after what happened last night:
12.20pm: Martin Wainwright and Riazat Butt are in Birmingham, talking to people there about the killing of three men who were run over as they tried to protect property last night:
Feelings are running very high in Winson Green where residents of the largely British Asian area are out on the streets discussing the tragedy in shocked and angry groups.
A committee meeting at the Dudley Road mosque this morning was “very hot” according to a group of men who were there, and whose view was echoed by the Bishop of Aston Rt Rev Anthony Watson, who also took part.
He warned of events taking on a ‘potentially ugly race dimension’ with real concern over reprisals if pleas for calm were not heeded. He said: “There were some very good things said by older people, but some of the younger ones were very angry.”
One of the group of men said: “There will be race riots if the police don’t sort this out quickly”.
He accused largely African-Caribbean looting gangs of targeting Asian-owned businesses, partly because they were perceived as easier targets compared with the city centre which was full of police.
They tried to do over the Jet2 garage in Dudley Road on Monday night and they knew there was money in the mosque.
“We were out there to protect both of them and other businesses and we were right to do that – because four carloads of blacks came along and it was obvious what they were planning.”
He said that one of the cars, an Audi, had left the road and rammed a group on the pavement including the victims – two brothers Shazad and Munir Hussein, 32 and 30, who ran a local car wash which was also among possible targets. With them was Haroon Chohan, 19, who worked as a mechanic in a local garage. He said:
“They were all bright young men working at proper jobs. The wife of one of them is expecting. It’s terrible.”
Concern at the meeting also focused on the 20 minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive, with Birmingham’s big City hospital only five minutes down the road. The bishop said that this was an issue at the mosque meeting and the men accused police riot vans of blocking the road and adding to the delay.
Two of the men died at the scene in spite of frantic attempts to resuscitate them, and the third died early this morning at the City hospital.
– Guardian