Rioting on a Sunday Afternoon.

The pub I used to help run in Surrey, was an old building, and stood directly opposite a road that was known colloquially as 'Beirut Alley'. The pub stood on the main road, and Beirut Alley was directly opposite on a T-junction, so that from the pub we could see up the whole road.
The local council in it's infinite wisdom, decided to rehouse the unruly dregs of the local council estates that no-one wanted to live next to, into one half of the houses, and the other half had been used for some thieving pikey bastards travelers, after they'd been 'politely escorted' from where they'd been camping.
Fortunately, we rarely got any trouble in the pub from them. Probably because a lot of them had been barred from other establishments in the locale, and if they started in our pub, they'd have nowhere else to go.
Sunday afternoons in general, were fairly quiet. Families would come in for a few drinks before trundling back home to their roast dinners, and between 12pm and 3pm, the pub would have a relaxed air about it as the children frolicked in the garden, the women bitched about the other women, and the men got ratted by the pool table.
One Sunday however, a fight started at the far end of 'Beirut Alley'. Someone had stolen something from somebody else and after a 'discussion', a police car turned up, closely followed by a van into which the pair of them were bundled into.
A few customers had staggered outside to watch the proceedings, but when it was all over they came back in.
After another ten minutes or so, we noticed even more blue flashy lights outside, this time closer to the pub. The families of the pair that had been arrested, had also started a fracas, this time about who had started the first fight, and even more police had been called to try and stop it. This was even more interesting for the customers, and all the men by the pool table went outside to cheer them on watch the show.
After another four people had been carted off, they all came back in, and the pub went back to it's happy, semi-drunken stupor.
Another ten minutes of peace went by. I settled down with a magazine and some choccy biccies, the men went back to playing with their balls pool, in the garden the women started talk of cooking, and children pushed each other off swings and so.
And then, all hell broke loose.
It seemed like the entire families and friends of the two that had started the first fight, had decided once and for all get whatever the problem was sorted, and were doing their utmost to do so with the aid of baseball bats, garden tools, knives, and whatever else they could get hold of.
Within minutes, what looked like the whole of the local constabulary had turned up in riot gear. The main road was closed off by a plethora of police cars and vans, all flashing their lights, which gave the inside of the pub a rather nice disco lighting effect.
This time, not just the men went outside. All the customers went to watch. The tables outside were used to stand on so that onlookers could get a better view, and children were being hoisted onto shoulders so that they could see the rozzers getting beaten up. All it needed to make the event complete, was a burger stall.
I reckoned it was best to stay in the pub and guard the till wait by the bar in case anybody wanted a drink. The door opened and one of the old regulars walked in, so I asked him what he wanted, and served him his beer. We both sat at the bar.
"How's it going today then?" he asked. "Anything exciting going on?"
"Nah" I replied. "Nothing out of the usual really".
Outside, the streets resounded to screams, cheers, and the sound of glass breaking. It carried on for about twenty minutes before the coppers finally rounded up the ringleaders and miscreants.
One by one, the police vans and cars left the scene, each laden with bruised and battered pugalists.
And then, I heard raucous laughter from the crowd, so I went to investigate.
In the middle of the road, blocking the traffic, stood a lone police car. Standing next to the car, was a solitary rozzer, looking rather pissed off annoyed.
"Right you lot!" he screamed "Which one of you took them, eh?"
He'd left the keys in the ignition, and while he was otherwise preoccupied, some joker had nicked them. He had to endure ten minutes of being jeered by the crowd, and beeped and sworn at by drivers who couldn't get past his car, until he was rescued.
Poor sod.
I later found the keys which had been thrown up onto a ledge under my bedroom window, but don't tell anyone, OK?