A burning car isn’t a big deal in a big city. Vandals and lager louts are always out to make troubles. But recent events in Berlin hint that, after the London riots, unrest is sprading all over Europe like a wildfire:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,780965,00.html
This article is only a stub so I’ll provide a bit more information. During this past week vandals the upscale districts of Charlottenburg and Tiergarten have experienced a spate of car arsons. The targeted cars are all the same: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lexus. Despite employing helicopters with thermal sensors and night vision equipment the police hasn’t been able to catch nobody to date: they suspect the arsonists move alone or in very small groups, impossible to tell from ordinary people out for a beer or a late night stroll. Their advice? “If you have a BMW, an Audi or a similar car park inside a garage”.
This may not sound like a big deal but it is. In fact even Angela Merkel herself had to go on TV and declare herself “troubled by these events”. Thanks a lot for your precious insight…
Investigations so far have turned out very little. It appears the arsonists are smart enough not to use social medias and cellphones and to rely on old fashioned paper and word of mouth. A few flyers have been found in Berlin describing the exact procedure to torch a car: police believe these flyers to be reliable.
The reasons this is a big deal are two. The first is the infamous Rote Arme Fraktion (RAF) terrorist group started out by setting fire to shops, then we all know what they did. The second is that many believe this to be a symptom of something similar to the London riots: violence fueled by jealousy and envy, violence aimed at those who own more than you do.