X-mo-1979 said:
So your blaming protest going south on police aggression?Nice.Do you think snatch teams go out for no purpose?Do you not think the people getting arrested are getting arrested for good reason?
As for the" suppose to keep the peace to wanting to commit acts that breaks it" its called having a mindset.You go into situations prepared for the worst,hoping for the best.It's called controlled aggression.Something I have applied during my career from lowest use to highest use of force.
No, I am saying, from my experience, that treating a protest as if all in it are guilty and like a riot is asking for it to become one, asking for people to attack you. From the G20 protest in 2001 to the SPP protest in 2007 in Ottawa, Ottawa Police and RCMP have improved considerably in their handling of major protests and in turn resulted more peaceful protests.
A lot of it is protest groups also improved their handling and organizing of protests, but the biggest is the decrease in the number of police officers, all of them in regular uniform apart from the tactical unit in riot gear held in reserve and out of view, not using any tear gas or dogs or water hose or pepper spray (well, in indiscriminate use anyway). G20 was a huge mess, being smaller version of what happened in Quebec City and Seattle before that. Bush protest when he came to Ottawa for the first time, same number of people or more, yet lot more peaceful and riot gear police only came out for a smaller number of protesters who wanted to vent more directly, with only few of even them getting arrested, those actually responsible for throwing shit at the police and even injuring an officer.
To make the point further, during the Ottawa portion of SPP protests, it was even more peaceful and even less a need of the riot geared tactical unit with practically no arrest. Next day in Montebello, Surete de Quebec used older tactics of intimidation, nearly all police in riot gear, embedded police officers dress like anarchists with holding a rock, and so on. Result? More clashes, lot more arrests, and more prone to violence.
It fine to be ready for the worse, protest groups I have been involved with do the same, but to go in full of "controlled" aggression, no matter if your the police or one of the protesters, is asking for problems.
I hope and pray that one day if you do get in you get to stare at 60,000 people who are up in your face mouthing off for hours on end,nailing you with rocks, pulling people into the crowd to beat the living piss outta you.
Welcome to the real world.You would be the first to complain if the guys on the line backed off and the crowd destroyed your place of worship,house etc.
Protests are protests, and riots are riots, they are not the same thing. The perspective of riot control is just one piece of the greater picture, not the only version of the world.
I suggest everyone to watch Battle of Seattle which provides an idea of what happened in that protest and how it degenerated, showing the perspective of nearly all sides.