HUNDREDS of teenagers ran amok in the West End following a summertime call-out on social media.

The children had been urged to wear balaclavas and gloves but not bring weapons for a “Oxford Circus JD [Sports] robbery” at 3pm on Wednesday. A viral post had said: “Don’t come if you can’t run.”

Footage showed a commotion as large groups ran-about Oxford Street, but there was no looting despite concern there would be “mass shoplifting”.

Nine people were arrested and the home secretary called on the organisers of the “riot” to be “hunted down” and “locked up”.

Suella Braverman said: “We cannot allow the kind of lawlessness seen in some American cities to come to the streets of the UK. The police have my full backing to do whatever is necessary to ensure public order.”

The government has been criticised for failing a generation of young people with poor investment in housing and education.

On X(Twitter) A&E con-sultant Muhammad Asaria said: “When you’ve spent the last 13 years cutting funding to schools, youth centres, sports halls, swimming pools, libraries, gyms, what else do you think is going to happen?”

There has been a racist backlash on social media and moral outcry among political commentators.

Goodge Street and Warren Street stations were temporarily shut at the request of police, Transport for London said.

A dispersal zone, which gives police greater powers to move on crowds, was put in place from 11am on Tuesday until 10am yesterday (Thursday), covering Oxford Circus, Leicester Square, Soho, Covent Garden, and Waterloo Bridge.

The “riot” was over by 8pm and the Metropolitan Police Service said: “Four people were arrested on suspicion of breaching the dispersal order, one person was arrested on suspicion of going equipped to steal, one person arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and one person was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence.”