zlacker

>>MDWoli+(OP)
There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality) surrounded it. Self preservation.

My theory on why the police need to use some level of brutality is because a mob mentality is an animal. It's an amorphous mammalian manifestation that is afraid of loud noises, pain, and losing it's ability to breath easily. So they use counterpart tools to control it, because when this animal cant be controlled, the whole city could be be razed in flames. (As an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots#Destruc... )

Im not excusing shitty behavior, but it's worth considering there are millions of events going on in these protests, and all the excess force ones fit in a bullet list on my monitor. Also, in many of the listed events, the cops told people to move away or go back inside repeatedly before taking action. From their perspective, keeping battle formation is necessary to success. And lawfully, you are supposed to comply with this demand.

Just things to consider. I hope I'm not gut-reaction-down voted for taking the middle ground.

>>eezurr+sz
I don't know man, it really doesn't have to be this way. Look at how people respond when authority figures act like human beings: https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1267107339833925634

Imagine if the police showed up and started handing out water bottles, rather than assaulting unarmed (but angry) citizens. I think you'd see a different response.

Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck. A few violent protesters would strike the police, but if they remained passive I don't think it would take the sight of very many passive cops getting beaten up before the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops. Seeing someone getting beaten without defending themselves triggers a very powerful gut reaction in people, even when the victim is 'the enemy'.

>>cellul+CD
It appears that officer is not talking to a mob, but to dozens of calm people. Different situation. If people are already screaming and shouting, or worse, breaking things, and there are hundreds of them, that wont work.

>Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck.

Tell me how much it would cost to train a police force to that level of self control, and to be able identify, in a split second, if the person is attempting to do serious harm to you or is just blowing off steam. Once a person is close enough, there are plenty of blind spots to pull a knife out of.

>the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops

Crowd psychology overrides individual identity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence