Police anti-riot brutality

Just what the American Government needs. Another weapon that can be modified into something that can violate conventions of warfare or be used for torture. Not like we didn't have enough problems with just a few buckets of water.

Depends on where you are.

I don't know depends on the situation. To be honest I can't say I really care. I neither trust nor respect the United States police service. Ironically when I say that 90% of people assume I say that because I'm a criminal, but its more because of all of these horrible incidents (e.g. beating suspects, unnecessary use of brutal force (tasers, kicking...)) I know they are isolated incidents and it's stereotypical of me to assume that all officers are like that, but I just hope I never have to personally deal with the police because I hate them all.

There doesn't need to be a riot for police to beat the shit out of people.

There have been a lot of cases where people were protesting peacefully, non-violently, and police would hit them with batons and toss tear gas at them. I've seen videos of cops even tearing gas masks off of the protesters (who sat quietly on the ground) so that the tear gas would affect them.

Is it okay to use violence in such a situation? Is it acceptable in any way to hit people who aren't even standing up, so long as they are against something that you are for?

This is the kind of instance which makes me afraid to even protest, which is the point. Police make it so you don't want to protest and then nothing can be changed.

What's funny is recently on CNN (It was on during my break at Best Buy) a man was talking about how we need to change the mentality that the youth seems to have of the police of not trusting them, or that they're the wrong people to go to.

How is 'today's youth' supposed to trust a group of people that don't protect your rights, but instead just enforce the law they don't abide by?

Or is it not as bad as we think it is and media only protrays cases where the police are harmful, and not the cases where they're helpful?

The media are strongly biased in favour of the authorities, as wrongdoings by officers are massively under-reported in the media, and only crop up when a scandal absolutely cannot be ignored any more.

This is due to a) the media depending on the police for "stories", and severing their good relations to the police would seriously harm their business, b) the esprit-de-corps that is so overwhelmingly present in the police, meaning that investigation, particularly by "outsiders" is bound to meet a wall of stony silence and c) political opportunism.

This situation engenders a lack of transparency, and by extension distrust. While no doubt not all officers are bad, the lack of transparency and the force's tendency to respond to allegations in the manner of a hedgehog reflects poorly on the police as a whole, and encourages officers to act irresponsibly.

Personally if it was in my area, i would hope they would go for the most painful and bloody method possable, because odds are the people were rioting over something stupid.

The way I see, if there are a hundred protests, and only one of them involves the police beating the peaceful protesters, that's too high a risk. Call me a coward, but I don't want to get hurt, and even if I did get hurt, only fringe groups would pay any attention to my side of things. Most people, I daresay, would side with the police and say some shit like, "Some people were rioting, you deserved it for being part of an angry group."

If I got on a roller coaster, and it malfunctioned and hurt people, at least I'd be able to get someone to pay for my medical bills. If the police beat the shit out of me at a protest, I'd be responsible for paying for any treatment I get, and that'd be worse than the actual ass-whupping.