But that's the goal! When the police are worried the crowd might escalate, they preemptive action to end the situation before it can happen, because crowd-initiated escalations are much more destructive and deadly. Once protesters are shooting at people it's too late to step in.
This is incoherent. Beating peaceful protesters doesn't serve the goal of deescalation. Every single time, it resulted in more anger and frustration. Water bottles being thrown.
> When the police are worried the crowd might escalate, they preemptive action to end the situation before it can happen, because crowd-initiated escalations are much more destructive and deadly.
End the situation? It escalated every single time, exactly how you'd expect. Cops becoming aggressive and violent against protesters is not going to cool any heads. They teargassed kids, you know. In what world is that considered a way to "end the situation"?
> Once protesters are shooting at people it's too late to step in.
This is part of that dangerous warrior mentality, treating every group like an immediate existential threat that must be neutralized with violence based on nothing but speculation.
If you're justifying police violence and aggression based on what you imagine might happen, you're part of the problem.
We've just circled back around. You seem to be saying that groups of protesters are never threats, and I don't agree; it seems to me that once they start breaking random things, there's a serious and unacceptable risk they'll start killing people.
Truly peaceful protests where nothing's being vandalized or set on fire - yes, the police should never respond to those by force.
> We've just circled back around. You seem to be saying that groups of protesters are never threats
I've never said this.
> and I don't agree; it seems to me that once they start breaking random things, there's a serious and unacceptable risk they'll start killing people.
That is absurd. Damaging property is nothing like hurting people. In fact, alleging that the two are comparable is somewhat dehumanizing, as it's used to justify hurting people over damage to things. Things* should not have any level of parity with human life, particularly things like broken windows.
> Truly peaceful protests where nothing's being vandalized or set on fire - yes, the police should never respond to those by force.
Last time, you said the police could preemptively assume a protest will hurt people and start engaging in the violence we've been talking about. Now there's the good protester / bad rioter dichotomy, something often decried by civil rights leaders because it was the rallying cry of segregationists. That and outside agitators.
I was gassed and flashbanged in a protest where we were holding our hands up and chanting, "hands up, don't shoot".
