Violent Responses to Public Demonstrations

I've always liked the idea of civil disobedience via peaceful public protests. It can be a powerful tool to spread your message in both free and unfree societies.

But history is littered with examples of when police or military forces handle public demonstrations poorly, and violence ensues. Bloody Sunday (several of them), Kent State, the Boston Massacre, Tienanmen Square, even on a lesser scale at some of the Occupy protests. Violence can break out whether the regime is particularly oppressive or not. Some instigator hurled a rock or a trigger-happy soldier got upset. Shots are fired, people get hurt, it's a PR mess for the government, news media talks about it, and the protesters claim it as a rallying point. What does it accomplish?

It's the equivalent of Godwin's Law. It changes the argument. The movement is no longer about the protest; now it's about those horrible, barbaric government stormtroopers hurting people and stifling peoples' free speech. Even if the protest is about police brutality, it still proves nothing. This stuff just happens. Oppressive regimes are more blunt about it, but we have enough of a historical record to know it can happen anywhere.

So I don't know how to react when I hear about a violent incident between police and protesters. It's a terrible tragedy, but how should I feel? I find it hard to fault anyone, not even the hypothetical soldier who shot first, because I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's Razor and it's hard to conclude that every single one of these guys is a baby-killing monster. And yet these incidents and the propaganda wars that follow them have shaped history. Should something about our core mentality about these situations change?

Humans are herd animals and get confused easily in big crowds. It's not difficult to push such crowds out of control, or slip instigators into them.

Nonviolent protest is important, but the way it's done is completely out of whack and just feeds into our animal nature. If we stick to smaller groups holding signs and showing every sign of nonviolence, we should be okay. The trick is doing that, sadly. When people on the street see something, first they'll watch, then they'll join. Then you get a crowd again. And when something's being seriously protested, it's already enough to make people mad.

Whenever I read about stuff like Kent State I'm really disappointed. That's stuff just shouldn't happen in democracy. The government should be something you want to get involved.

Yeah, doing protests in small groups doesn't really get the message out there at all. Numbers count when doing a social movement. There's a reason the Million Man March is famous. For some things, huge numbers are needed.

I'd like to point out the recent Oakland protest, which was relatively peaceful considering the history of that place. The protestors there made a concerted effort to not break out into a riot, regardless of the actions of the police. Hell, a soldier got injured by the police, that could have set off a huge riot. Instead, fellow protestors got the guy some medical help.

Should we have police there? Yes. Should those police be dressed in riot gear acting like they're going to stage a hit on people who are just walking around with signs and chanting? Fuck no, that's an overreaction.

As for how you should feel; figure out who did what first. In a lot of cases the attacks are by police and unprovoked. In some cases some idiot got it into their head to start trashing things. (Like some of those guys in Italy started burning some cars, but largely the movement there also remained peaceful.)

Yes, modern governments are definitely getting better at handling public demonstrations. Governments are Genre Savvy to what happens to their reputations if they respond harshly. Police are better trained. Less lethal equipment is used. This is all good.

But they can't be perfect. Police will go overboard with nonlethal ammo and look like psychos even while not hurting anyone seriously. Someone with a heart condition is going to get tazed and die, or someone will be trampled in a mob, or police will shoot someone while trying to stop a lone violent instigator. There will be no significant changes that will prevent the same sort of public outrage, and it will still overtake the purpose of the protest. And when violence occurs at a protest, the next protests are overtaken by concerns of it happening again.

I'm really bothered by this. It's something that seriously impedes civil discourse and seems unavoidable. And yet some huge historical changes have come out of the outrage at government violence toward protesters.

I think police should be there, on the street, but the wall-o-riot shields isn't needed. Have them on reserve, and ready for quick response, but no need for them to be all decked out while it's still peaceful

once stuff starts getting broke, then you send them in.

Treblain, the problem here is mostly that a lot of folks go in expecting or intending to start a problem. On both sides. But, given the recent OWS, I have seen that generally alot more people go in intending to keep things peaceful, and have proven capable of doing so even when people on both sides try to start something.

I'd also like to point out that a lot of the examples you listed are in extremely authoritarian countries. Yes, the US has had some terrible riots, but we have the right to protest here and there's a large number of protests that have gone by unnoticed because they were small, the protesters didn't intend to start a fight, and the police just watched them without freaking out. (The OWS is the biggest protest that's happened here in a while, I think. And recently where I live there was a protest for gay and lesbian rights that didn't have a showdown riot with the police. The times where things go wrong get televised a lot more than the times things don't.)

In countries like China where you get a protest, the government isn't going to respond reasonably because of the way it's structured. And the people doing the protesting know that there's going to be something bad happening, but they have to do it anyway or they'll continue to be ignored in a country where the government controls nearly everything.

I think the problem is that the people most able to tell the real story are usually the ones who have the most to gain by lying about it.