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lazarus1983 -> RE: London Protests Turn Violent With Parliament Under Siege Protesters are now fighting with polic (12/11/2010 4:46:59 PM)
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If London really was a police state, like some people like to say, wouldn't they just...shoot the protesters? Instead of allowing them to protest? What about those police medics treating protesters that had been injured? Would North Korea do that?
I highly doubt a real police state would bother to use less lethal means of controlling or dispersing a crowd. China ran over its student protesters with a tank.
I can't speak on riot control tactics used in the UK, but I know more than most about those used in the US. Intentional agitators in the crowd are identified and attempted to be singled out and taken out of the crowd. The problem is that there's no way of knowing who has what in those crowds. And if you allow them to start throwing bottles of water or rocks, what's to stop them from escalating to throwing more dangerous items? What if someone in the crowd is armed? Law enforcement are constantly taught to play the "what if" game. What if, what if, what if. Their lives can depend on it.
Running a horse at the front line of advancing protesters is an excellent way to break up that line and get them to disperse. That's a great way to shake the mob mentality and bring a person back to their senses. Again, would a real police state bother to disperse them? Or just open fire into the crowd indiscriminately? I haven't read too much into this particular riot, but it's very possible that there could be police officers that acted of their own, that chose to attack. Just like there are those individual protesters that are probably responsible for this situation to escalate.
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