Police action during protests

[marley2580]

So its ok for some randum(non protestor just a normal day) person in the street to come up to a policeman and just shout abuse attack and/or throw objects at him and them just take it and not take action... No said person would be restrained and fprced to the ground cuffs on you name it and arrested! ... Just because its a protest you think these actions should be ignored as they have free will or some other petty excuse!! Dont think so!

But they must police according to the situation. If they were randomly walking down the street and someone acted like that they would have very good reason to believe that person was a danger to themselves or others. At a protest they have to realise that there will be people out to antagonise them. These people act like that in order to get a reaction from the police, by reacting that way they are simply putting fuel on the antagonists fire. Of course, if they are attacked etc they should defend themselves and arrest people, but they should do their damnedest to not react to the idiots that are simply out to cause trouble. IMO

 

[marley2580]

and then those people would complain that the police are stopping them from their right to protest

Well tough IMO. The police can use terrorism legislation for all sorts of stupid reasons, so they could use it to prevent the anarchists/troublemakers going to the protests. I don't see why they can do it for football matches and not protests.

 

[marley2580]

This isnt the best example as i do think that police officer could have handled it better but faced with that many people screaming at you you are going to do what is necessary to keep things under control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppDEJUG7fE&feature=BF&list=PLFEBB4AE6B8A0C548&index=11

She was acting aggressively towards him, screaming at him i heard the words scum or pig i think. He pushed her back yet she carried on and walked towards him arms out shouting so yea he hit her. If someone were coming at me like that i wlould have done the same.

Yes he gets in trouble

See this, to me, is a good example of how bad policing can lead to an escalation. She was reacting to another person being taken away, the ploice officer backhanded her and when she reacted to that (in a non violent way) he whacked her with a truncheon, cue the crowd reacting badly. Yes the woman was in his face, yes she was shouting at him, but she was about a foot smaller than him and was not even looking like becoming violent. It was an over reaction in front of an already hostile crowd. That to me is bad policing.