If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/39trofw

A typical Guardian report.

Why is it that the police are always accused of being the 'Bogey Men'?

/// Susan Meadows, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said her son was "hit on the head by a police truncheon. He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life.///

He hasn't experienced anything yet. If he didn't expect to get hurt he should have kept away.

/// "The big question is how you can use police on horseback charging across when there are 14- and 15-year-olds in there," ///

Simple the 14 and 15 year old's parents should not allow them to protest.

Do these trouble makers expect to dish out all the violence and then expect the police to turn the other cheek?

[Kromovaracun]

"So, let's see if I have this straight ... 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds are the ones who are going to be affected by the changes they are protesting against, but they shouldn't be allowed to go and protest ? And because there is the possibility that some troublemakers will use the protest to cause mayhem, people should not excercise their right to protest peacefully ? "

Of course not.

What I was saying was that responsibility for the casualties afflicted on those who tried to demonstrate peacefully lies with those who hijacked the protest, not with the police. Regardless of how you try to spin it, I'm not convinced it's actually that easy (or in fact always possible) for police officers to make the distinction in the moment - it is however completely possible for those who provoke the police to make the distinction between themselves and others. If they hide in the crowd, that's what'll happen.