On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, petro wrote:
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.
(Actually the police here have far more stringent requirements for even drawing a gun than they do over there in the States. But that's not really the issue.)
But is there as much scrutiny and backlash when they do? Here in the US, it is getting to the point where cops in larger cities won't even bother to deal with certain crimes in certain neighborhoods, as they are afraid that even if they do everything by the book, they will get fucked. From http://www.nationalreview.com/dunphy/dunphy.shtml "One officer, 17-year veteran Eric Michl, put it this way: "Parking under a shady tree to work on a crossword puzzle is a great alternative to being labeled a racist and being dragged through an inquest, a review board, an FBI and U.S. Attorney's investigation and a lawsuit." And it is certainly the case that any one who gives the orders to fire into a crowd will face some sort of civil suit (whether right or wrong, when there is big bucks at stake, the suit will be brought).
The police are already given broad discretion in their use of force. (For instance, to stop a fleeing suspect.) I fear that the mechanisms which brought us dedicated riot control forces could very well grant the police a catch-all licence to kill when "threatened" by a group of protestors. The Bloc attire and their interest in direct action constitute a highly plausible threat. So could any larger crowd of angry people who refuse to disband, if people ever start to think of protestors merely as "anarchists" or "hooligans".
In this country, that discretion is being severely narrowed. There is a case in Seattle (IIRC) where a black man was (allegedly) *DRAGGING A COP WITH HIS CAR* and was shot dead. People got upset at the police for this. -- 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.