But also, the police should be able to observe a protest without it turning violent. It goes both ways.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, observe. But leave them alone if they are not being violent. It's happened plenty of times where the police are unjustifiably brutal when the protesters have been peaceful. Most recently at the wall street protest.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, but it's also happened plenty of times that protesters have brought guns or something to what is supposed to be a peaceful protest and turned it violent. I'm saying it goes both ways.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's a whole different story. Bringing guns to a protest isn't peaceful and wasn't what I was talking about at all. Obviously the police should interject in that case, but only if the protesters turn violent first.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No that's not what I'm saying. It happens that people turn a peaceful protest violent, as well. I mean it can be turned violent by either side.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I agreed with you :S Basically I think it's fucked up what's happening to innocent protesters being hurt/pepper sprayed/detained (especially without medical treatment from the wounds inflicted by the police) for no reason at the Occupy Wall Street protests when they did nothing to warrant that response. And it got me thinking about other protests where the police have abused their power, especially in countries where freedom of speech and protest is a right. The police should never be the aggressors, they should only be there to control the crowd if they are violent. Peaceful protesters should be left alone.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's also fucked up when people open fire on the police when they're just standing there observing.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

They should also protest peacefully without fear of public brutality.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah like the Westbro Baptist Church are absolute twats, but they have the right to peacefully protest, and while other people can counter protest they should not attack them and physically harm them.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Would you really call them 'peaceful', though? They're not physically violent but there very harsh and very obtrusive, and most definitely disruptive. I'm not advocating attacking them, I'm just not sure if I would call them 'peaceful'.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

She means physically peaceful; just because a group is incendiary doesn't mean they have no right to voice violent opinions in a non violent way.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

If you mean just that they're not inflicting physical injury to people or property, then I have to disagree. I know the post is old, but if protesters cause public inconvenience, like blocking a road and refusing to move, the police have every right to use anything up to rubber bullets to disperse them. Seriously, I don't count it as peaceful if you can see it, because protests, by definition, disturb the peace.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This happened in Malaysia a week ago during the Bersih 3.0 rally.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

People should be able to /exist/ without police brutality. See also: Zimmerman.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There are good police and bad police. I hate when people assume that all police officers are some douchebag, power hungry, assholes when they're not. But yeah, police brutality is something that seriously needs to be dealt with.

by Anonymous 11 years ago