Earlier quoted context omitted.
US police receive large amounts of hand down military equipment and are routinely armed. Some US citizens are routinely armed, so the potential for lethal harm is much greater in any scenario. US domestic policy has encouraged the police to be at war (vs crime, drugs etc). US domestic policy has encouraged a criminalization of large amounts of petty stuff (truancy / three strikes policies) which encourages this. This…
> Almost any civilian action (e.g. filming police / protests) encourages the 'us vs them' attitude and encourages police to close ranks. IMO, if you are not able to shrug off people exercising their rights even if it bothers you you are unfit of being a police officer. Or any civil servant for that matter.
Protests are extremely volatile environments, and often a small number of people in them are there to cause trouble.
Protestors often equivocate attacking the government as attacking the police (sometimes reasonsably, as the police are effectively a state instrument). It's quite difficult not to create an us versus them attitude when some people in a protest are throwing projectiles.