Flash crowds heat up

Wretchard at The Belmont Club offers some commentary on the tactics used by the rioters in France, and apparently, elsewhere.

Belmont Club commenter Red River makes the interesting conjecture that rioting "youths" in Paris have confined their primary mode of attack to car burning as part of a deliberate brinkmanship. Car burning is spectacular, serious enough to get attention yet – and this is the vital point – not serious enough to provoke lethal force. By staying just shy of the threshold, the rioters can maximize their rate of propagation at minimum danger to themselves.

If so, that would imply guerilla tactics, and a bit more thought than a mob usually gives to its actions in a riot. Now the part that intrigues me:

Other commenters have noted how small groups of "youths", coordinated by cell phone, can gather to attack and disperse before a response can be mounted.

In May of 2003, the first known "flash mob" was assembled. Using the Internet and cell phones to coordinate, a crowd of tens, sometimes hundreds, of people would descend on a location.

Flash mobs started as pointless stunts, but the concept has already developed for the benefit of political and social agendas. For example, a group of gay and lesbian people in Detroit targeted a "straight restaurant" in reaction to reported homophobia there.

Or, I suppose, if you need a dozen rioters at a particular spot for the few minutes it takes to make your point...