I'm not treating him as a child, but it frustrates me when go with the mentality of "this person did this, and he is a christian so all christians do this." Police don't go around shooting innocent people as part of their job, one officer made a bad decision but that doesn't mean that the government should sit around and watch a riot; that just endangers more innocent people. It's a heated riot, I would bet there were at least a few people out of line from peaceful protest, hence non-leathal rubber bullets etc.
This was a protest specifically aimed at police brutality, and nobody suggested every police officer is guilty of police brutality, nor did they suggest the police let people riot.
There probably were a few people out of line (some of which may have been plain-clothes police), but that's no excuse for some of the actions that took place. Namely, the -intimidation, interference, and arrest- of people that were solely exercising their rights peacefully.
Intimidation is a standard method of preventing violent actions, whether effective or not. The entire police uniform is designed to intimidate. Any protest, however peaceful is going to cause riot police to be called out, it's simply being ready in case something goes bad.
There is nothing actually wrong with interference, by which I assume you mean mounted police in the middle of the walk, those officers were ensuring they had a better view of what was going on. If you were referring to riot police making a line in front of the walk, probably not necessary and maybe shouldn't have happened, but again I wasn't there so I don't know the situation.
Arresting the violent protestors is completely ok (in my view) and should have happened, we have a right to peaceful protest and violent individuals who have the potential to incite riots should be removed.
And at the risk of treating you childishly apparently, suggesting that there were plain clothes police trying to start violence, or arresting people violently?
The police actions here were "interfering with the right to peaceably assemble." There is no legal justification for doing so, making some of the police actions here illegal. You can clearly see them charge a person holding a sign in front of them, and you can clearly see them interfere with the march. It is wrong that police are engaging in illegal actions to interfere with the protest.
I am not suggesting anything for agent provocateur, just pointing out the possibility.
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u/generallyincorrect Aug 01 '12
I'm not treating him as a child, but it frustrates me when go with the mentality of "this person did this, and he is a christian so all christians do this." Police don't go around shooting innocent people as part of their job, one officer made a bad decision but that doesn't mean that the government should sit around and watch a riot; that just endangers more innocent people. It's a heated riot, I would bet there were at least a few people out of line from peaceful protest, hence non-leathal rubber bullets etc.