London Riots: Woman Leaps From Burning Building In Dramatic Scene (PHOTOS)

A photograph of a desperate woman leaping from a building engulfed in flames is surfacing as the iconic image capturing London's ongoing riots.

On Monday night, photographer Amy Weston, 33, was in the city's Croydon neighborhood when she heard screams coming from burning storefronts near the Surrey Street market.

Weston described the scene to The Guardian:

"There were six or seven people screaming and crying outside, and they looked like they lived at the flats that were burning … A man in a white shirt was screaming that a girl was at the window and that she was ready to jump. He ran towards her but riot police had appeared and pulled him back, and they went to her instead. As soon as she dropped, the crowds pushed back and there was no way to see what happened to her. I remember hearing people screaming that there were more people in the building."

Weston, who shoots for the London-based WENN photo agency, covered her camera under her coat and, unable to reach her car, quickly left the scene on foot.

The series of images quickly went viral, spreading across Twitter and eventually landing on the front page of The Guardian, The London Times, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, and The Daily Telegraph.

"With each huge news story there is a scramble it seems to find the icon -- the single photograph that resonates deeper and more powerfully than the rest, and comes to symbolize the event in the mind of readers," Time's Patrick Witty wrote in reference to the image.

Britain is once again bracing itself for another night of mayhem.

Scroll through the slideshow to see one woman's terrifying experience.

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A woman can be seen jumping from a burning building in Surrey Street after rioting took place in Croydon, England on August 8, 2011. Riots and looting have broken out all across Greater London and are now spreading across the country following the shooting of Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham, North London on Friday, August 8th.

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A woman can be seen jumping from a burning building in Surrey Street after rioting took place in Croydon, England on August 8, 2011.
Riots and looting have broken out all across Greater London and are now spreading across the country
following the shooting of Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham, North London on Friday, August 8th.

comments(369)

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Comments

[anne1stoftwo]

03:26 PM on 08/11/2011

What a series of Pictures. I am in awe...

[LadyLibertyAtHerKnees]

02:41 PM on 08/11/2011

I'm moved by all those threatened by violence. Unfortunately, this isn't an incidence of isolated hooligans who want an iPad or who want to smash windows for the fun of it,which is what the press has been selling for days now. Not a single journalist looking at the recent history of Europe,which contains other similar instances -an apt comparison which I haven't heard is the Paris riots of 05-which also was triggered by the communities outrage at the way they are treated by the police triggered by an incident of 2 boys deaths as a result of a police chase.
When the press doesn't provide the bare minimum of context,you begin to realize how they are failing at their job as the 4th estate.
This photo captures a true side to the riots, unfortunately we don't see the opposite side of the violence which has been a heavy police presence in poor neighborhoods with high unemployment.

[Ken White]

02:24 PM on 08/11/2011

As a former newspaper photographer I noticed this photo immediately. What a great image. And the photographer, Amy Weston, did the right thing by hiding her camera after taking the photos. I can remember photographing some sensitive spot news scenes and having to do the same thing because police sometimes forget about the 1st Amendment when they're in the heat of an uncontrolled situation. In Weston's case, the crowd may have also descended on her. She sounds like a smart photojournalist.

[Whinger]

06:30 AM on 08/11/2011

The lady seen jumping for her life is Polish and only arrived in the UK a few week previous.....

Fortunately she escaped unhurt, but one wonders how many similar escapes go unreported.

[cheo]

04:39 AM on 08/11/2011

Every overcrowded neighborhood in big cities which have high chronic unemployment, poor schools, possible racial discrimination, overly rough treatment from police which upper class neighborhoods never experience, and whose residents see around them people living in a bubble of wealth and privilege, is a tinderbox waiting to ignite. Which incident is going to be the one that is just too much?

There is a lot of anger pent up in people who feel like they are powerless to change their lives. This is not an excuse, merely an observation.

Americans watching these riots in London should not forget how many damaging riots we have had in our big cities over the years.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41372364/America_s_Most_Destructive_Riots_of_All_Time

The slide show has a weird structure, but the photos aren't bad and the information is useful

[tickingtimebomb]

07:17 AM on 08/11/2011

America has had problems because of race. And now in the 21st century it will be race and religion, and class war fare. It's called jealousy.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

11:24 AM on 08/11/2011

It is also called oligarchy and injustice.

[HHUA]

01:26 PM on 08/11/2011

"jealousy"?!!!

People don't RIOT over "jealousy". Racism yes, religion yes, classism yes... especially where oligarchy and injustice (as posted by Hopalong) have fanned the flames of hatred and desperation.

[Havana Thinks]

07:39 AM on 08/11/2011

I must compliment you on being able to say so much in what would have taken me 6 paragraphs. You have done well to express the truth and I give you, cheo, my smart badge!

It is a pleasure to read your posts. F + F

[Threadsline]

11:11 PM on 08/10/2011

What they need in Croydon, England is a real good community organizer.

[TomMartin]

10:19 PM on 08/11/2011

Yes, there were no riots in Chicago when Obama was a community organizer there.

[Threadsline]

11:06 PM on 08/10/2011

I couldn't help but think that this type of riotous destruction can possibly happen in larger U.S. cities but don't think it will happen in the State where I reside. The State law here says you can carry a concealed weapon, with a permit. I'm also willing the bet that the majority of home owners in my State all have guns in their houses. I would thus think that if this type of rioting happened here, the citizens all would be "packing" and joining local law enforcement.

[Zygote9111]

01:59 PM on 08/11/2011

Guns will save the world. Praise the Lord. Let's throw some bullets into the fire to save the day.

Really? This is your post. There are larger problems here and you focus on gun ownership to solve this incredibly complex issue? Isn't there a small animal you can go kill?

[gardinerda]

06:54 PM on 08/11/2011

won't happen in Switzerland, either, where they are REQUIRED to have guns, and take courses in gun safety.

[Threadsline]

10:54 PM on 08/10/2011

These poor repressed underpriviledged rioters are probably thinking that they are the ones who deserve to be living in these flats not all those rich people.

I'm sorry, but that probably is what those rioters really believe.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

11:25 AM on 08/11/2011

For what you just said, you are not sorry.

[Francois Bergeron]

01:35 PM on 08/11/2011

The rioters are hooligans who just wait eagerly for these occasions.
They love this stuff.
The way they're dressed says it all. They plan for it.

[jamuelle]

01:46 PM on 08/11/2011

Chavs is the term I believe you are looking for.

And you are very correct. They wait until the opportunity presents itself, and then they strike. I highly doubt the family of the man shot by police, who started the protest, would have wanted this to happen. At least I would hope not.

[Warren Garrison]

07:46 PM on 08/10/2011

and you'll try and tell me these bstrds from hell should not have been shot on site!!! damn, give me a shot at them and I'll show you how to stop rioters and looters and people that will destroy like this.

[EuroRant1]

10:07 PM on 08/10/2011

The streets of America run red with the blood of it's 15,000 citizens each year due to gun violence. Your gun mentality has already spread south to Mexico, when will you be satisfied? Now you boast that you want to bring this menace to our shores.

Even amidst all the riots and upheaval we do have laws that govern who can and cannot carry a gun here. No thank you, we like things as they are, please stay there.

Thank god for oceans.

[Threadsline]

10:59 PM on 08/10/2011

I'm pretty sure that only felons (in the U.S.) and minor children are the only ones who are not allowed to carry guns in the U.S. Thus, I'm also pretty sure that here in the good ole U.S. there are no laws that govern who cannot carry a gun. But I could be wrong (although I doubt it.)

[Warren Garrison]

11:15 PM on 08/10/2011

I not oblivious that Liberals are a disease throughout the entire world as you verify that here in your post. However, as shop and home owners and private citizens hovered in fear during the past few days in your country as these godless maniacs raged through the streets burning and destroying private property, people like yourself set the stage for them to be defenseless. LIke most Liberals, you are unable to differentiate between a citizen owning a gun to protect themselves from criminals, and the gangsters and mentally disturbed who are going to have a gun before the end of any day as long as they have $500. The fear should be with us of you in that whether with a gun, baseball bat, kitchen knife, or slingshot, YOUR kind of person will hold us responsible for actually defending ourselves should we harm a criminal while thinking nothing of what they might have done to us had we allowed it.

[Francois Bergeron]

01:35 PM on 08/11/2011

They're just kids.

[Warren Garrison]

03:48 PM on 08/11/2011

oh I'm sorry person who is about to destroy everything I own and possibly take my life and the lives of my family, I can't harm you because you're just a kid. NOT! Sad, and i"m sure I'd feel remorseful that they put me in that position, but drastic actions, call for drastic measures.

[sharmaine73]

07:03 PM on 08/10/2011

So sad, the state of things today.

[ontariogirl]

06:28 PM on 08/10/2011

Iconic photo. Going viral. How pathetic have things become. Someone was jumping from a burning building to save their life. Too many innocent people are being hurt.

[EuroRant1]

10:38 PM on 08/10/2011

If ever the World Press Photo exhibition comes near your city, you should make every effort to view it. Images can move governments, politics and public opinion. There is nothing pathetic about an image that overnight changed public opinion all over London here.

Even you yourself stated, "Someone was jumping from a burning building to save their life. Too many innocent people are being hurt." You made an opinion based on that photograph, good or bad, you were moved by it enough to say something... a photograph that ten minutes before you never knew existed.

History and news events will always be wrought with thousands of "iconic and pathetic" photos whether we like them or not:
- The assassination of a young president in Dallas.
- Three day later the shooting of that president's alleged assassin.
- Vietnamese children running naked up a road after a napalm bombing.
- A young senator lying on a kitchen floor after being shot.
- Skeleton remains of victims in the Nazi death camps of Europe.
- People jumping to their deaths from two towers on 9/11.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/

[alsm9]

11:49 AM on 08/11/2011

"There is nothing pathetic about an image that overnight changed public opinion all over London here."

They didn't say the image was pathetic, they said it was iconic. They said the riots were pathetic.

[aphextwin07]

03:58 PM on 08/10/2011

meh, seen more "iconic" photos from coverage posted already than these

[kbak25]

02:43 PM on 08/10/2011

What started out as a legitimate outcry against police violence has devolved into a frightening instance of the group think phenomenon. It is the shameful failure of everyone involved when democratic dialogues turn into rioting, the price of which is paid by deaths, injuries, and the loss of livelihood of innocent bystanders. This picture gives me a pit in my stomach. Its subject is the personification of fear, panic, and helplessness, and those who would critique this photo because of its composition, or claim not to "buy it" due to the fact that the woman jumped from the second floor, rather than the tenth, would do well to set aside their cynicism, and connect with the human element of the photo.

[LadyLibertyAtHerKnees]

02:55 PM on 08/11/2011

Right, I agree. But the element we are missing is the opposite end of the violence,which is the police presence and behavior in poor slums really all across Europe,not just in the UK. Add to that the neoliberal economic polciies which created these slums.
There have been too many riots whose start lies in police harassment and abuse of poor members of the community to ignore. Just because rioters cannot quote Marx or that some are vioent thugs doesn't discount the heavily relevant political issues surrounding this riot which include:austerity measures, immigration for low wage labor,mass unemployment,police harassment, giant income inequality, etc.
We can say these people just want to destroy their own neighborhoods,steal Blackberries,or cause mayhem-but this will do little to stem these incidents which are clearly due to sociopolitical issues. Either we crack down hard and spend more and more money and sacrifice more and more privacy to the police(who,it's not mentioned in any article about the rioting, have the entire city under surveillance) or we confront the origins of the violence.
I bet it will be the former, and will only change when middle classes start being majorly impacted by the increased police powers and presence,

[Christ Johnson1]

02:08 PM on 08/10/2011

the building is in critical focus and she isn't. B+

[mathme]

05:43 PM on 08/11/2011

So what?

[Crushedknee]

01:53 PM on 08/10/2011

What are those round cloth things several firefighter would hold to catch people from building..Think Some Alaskan natives used it for sport and scouting terrain too. Guess it's no longer used