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I think a lot of what is happening is a lot like what happened during Viet Nam. For the first time, with the media coverage and the advances in technology that made the media coverage possible, the true horrors of war were brought to the nightly news. It's been a long time, but some of those images are still with me.
Now, just about everyone has an electronic device that can take a picture or a video and get that image out to the public.
The police are trained to handle a certain situation a certain way. They never know if the person they are confronting has a weapon or not. They use certain techniques to protect themselves. From a certain perspective, it looks quite brutal, but if you were a cop already risking his or her life out there, how many chances would you take? We are seeing the videos from the point of view of certain people. Not that some of those techniques are not pretty rough. They are. But remember who is showing the videos.
Are all the demonstrators peaceful people. No. Pure and simple, no. I'd venture to say that most are out to peacefully demonstrate, but in any crowd, you are highly likely going to get some that are capable of getting violent. There are some videos of people throwing things at police here in the USA. When that happens, it will get rough.
Do some police get too rough unnecessarily. Yes, pure and simple, yes. I'd venture to say that most do not, but there are bad apples in every group.
I like clear and simple yes or no questions, but when you are dealing with individual actions in large groups of people, it is seldom as simple as I wish it were. To make a sweeping comment that includes every individual in a large group just does not work.
