LONDON – There has been a second night of rioting across London, with violence erupting in several of the British capital's boroughs, from Brixton in the south to Enfield and Islington in the north and Walthamstow to the east.

On Monday, British government officials branded rioters as opportunistic criminals and said the violence, the worst in London for years, would not affect preparations for next summer's Olympic Games.
Police arrested more than 160 people across London in a weekend of mayhem that started in the multi-ethnic, lower-income neighborhood of Tottenham, only a few miles from the Olympic park that will welcome millions of visitors in less than a year, Reuters reported.
“It was needless, opportunistic theft and violence, nothing more, nothing less. It is completely unacceptable,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said he hoped the city would “have a fantastic Olympics no matter what happened last night.”
Home Secretary Theresa May cut short her holiday and returned to London for meetings with police officials in the afternoon, government sources said.
Groups smashed and looted shops and damaged a police car in Enfield, a few miles north of Tottenham, which saw the British capital's worst unrest in years on Saturday night when a police station came under attack amid protests over the death of Mark Duggan, a father of four who was gunned down by police on Thursday.
The multi-ethnic neighborhood of Tottenham has a history of racial tension, with locals -- especially Afro-Caribbean residents -- resenting police behavior, including the use of stop and search powers.
Police said on Monday they had responded to what they called “copycat criminal activity” across London.
There was looting in a number of boroughs in north, east and south London by small and mobile groups. And groups of youths continued to attack police officers, damaging a number of police vehicles.
“It's not so easy to explain the violence of the past two days,” Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips said, reporting from the riot-hit district of Brixton.
“It began in the north London neighborhood of Tottenham -- the catalyst was the killing by police of a black man.
“But British politicians say racial tensions -- or poverty -- don't justify what has happened since that death.”
'Sporadic disorder'
Christine Jones, a police commander, said the police had “extra resources” on duty across the capital on Sunday night.
“We know we have been victimized by this government, we know we are being neglected by the government. How can you make one million
[people] unemployed and expect us to sit down?”
There had been “sporadic disorder” in a number of boroughs throughout the night, with more than 100 people detained, on top of 61 arrested on Saturday night and Sunday morning, she said.
“Anyone else who thinks they can use the events from last night as an excuse to commit crime will be met by a robust response from us,” Jones said in a statement.
Three shops were damaged, and two of them looted. In Enfield, the rear window of a police car was smashed, police said, adding that several people had been arrested.