On Mon, 9 Jul 2001, A. Melon wrote:
They've got a good idea -- one of the tactics used by cops for quite awhile is to have undercover agents in the crowd who spot the *real* troublemakers, leaders, etc. and then often an "affinity squad" will target that individual. By making it very difficult to differentiate any individuals, that whole cop tactic becomes useless.
So there will be joint prosecutions, with each of the Bloc-ers receiving indictments for *all* of the "operations" performed. I also think such aggressive demonstrations will make the police even more trigger-happy than they are now.
They have probably discussed this, and are willing to deal with it. After all, given the state of the American Press, this would be P.R. Suicide for the Police.
The other part of the bloc is that by staying together in a tight group, they can grab arrestees from the cops more easily. We used to have groups of two or three who worked together this way, more is better.
The only logical conclusion I can see to skirmishes between black-clad anarchists, going on "street operations", and governmental riot control forces, is that the police are eventually given the right to just gun the protestors down, irregardless of whether they have *done* anything. Unless
Maybe in Finland, but here in the US, the government official that gave the orders to shoot a crowd of protestors would *not* be working much longer. -- http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.