RIOT, a disturbance of the public peace, attended with circumstances of tumults and commotion, as where an assembly destroys, or in any manner damages, seizes, or invades private or public property, or does any injury what ever by actual or threatened violence to the persons of individuals. By the com mon law a riot is an unlawful assembly of three or more persons which has act ually begun to execute the common pur pose for which it assembled by a breach of the peace, and to the terror of the public. A lawful assembly may become a riot if the persons assembled form and proceed to execute an unlawful purpose to the terror of the people, though they had not that purpose when they assem bled. In England, every person con victed of riot is liable to be sentenced to hard labor. In Scotch law rioting is termed mobbing. A person may be guilty of mobbing who directs or excites a mob though he is not actually present in it. Mere presence without participation
may constitute mobbing. By an act of George I., called the Riot Act, whenever 12 or more persons are unlawfully as sembled to the disturbance of the peace, it is the duty of the justices of the peace, and the sheriff and under-sheriff of the county, or of the mayor or other head officers of a city or town corporate, to command them by proclamation to disperse. And all persons who continue unlawfully together for one hour after the proclamation was made, commit a felony and are liable to penal servitude or imprisonment.
Most, if not all, of the States of the American Union have riot acts some what similar to those of England, and the common law governs where no stat utes have been enacted.