HOOLIGANISM and anti-social behaviour is not only football related, as yesterday’s events at the Larnaca traffic police headquarters showed. The gathering, outside the building, of a hundred or so rowdy teenage students, had nothing to do with football and everything to do with a lack of respect for law and order.

The teenagers were chanting abusive slogans against the police and at some point managed to force the front gates open and enter the grounds of the police HQ. Policemen managed to chase them away but some of the hooligans run away with two of the flags that were flying in the forecourt. They then proceeded to set alight the flag of the Cyprus Police Force in front of watching policemen and bystanders; they also threw rocks and water bottles at the building.

The cause for this aggressive behaviour was the death in a motor-cycle crash of one of their class-mates last Friday. Sixteen-year-old Vasilis Theakou was fatally injured after losing control of his motor-cycle and hitting an electricity pylon in Larnaca. His fellow students blamed the police for his death, claiming that Theakou had crashed after a high-speed chase, having allegedly ignored police orders to stop.

Police denied this allegation on Friday, while the journalist who had reported the alleged high-speed chase had no evidence apart from a claim by a youth who was not even at the scene of the accident. No such allegation had been formally made to the police, said a statement. A wild allegation, irresponsibly reported by a journalist, sparked a mini-riot by teenagers, who reacted like group of hooligans.

But even if there had been a high-speed chase, why were the police to blame? The unfortunate teenage student had no driver’s licence and was not wearing a crash helmet. This may sound insensitive, but the truth is that he had the largest share of the responsibility for what had happened. The idea that the police should turn a blind eye when they see a teenager, illegally riding a motorbike, and not try to stop him when he could easily cause an accident, is quite preposterous.

But it is something we have come to expect from a society in which nobody is prepared to take responsibility for his or her actions. Someone else is always to blame - in cases of riots, hooliganism and violent demonstrations the blame always falls on police, either for using ‘excessive force’ or for not having enough men on duty. The people who break the law are rarely censured, which is why the football hooligans and teenage vandals are now out of control. Presumably, they too are not to blame for their anti-social behaviour and law-breaking.