Chicago: You've made me ashamed to call myself American

[skepticscott]

46. Well, it usually IS the case

that people could restrain their impulses, but choose not to. Hence the problem.

Certainly there are a small number of protestors who are eager to provoke physical confrontations with the police, as well as those who are at no great pains to avoid them, probably because they like getting pictures like these on the news, or because a bloodied scalp and a face full of pepper spray are more of a badge of honor to them than actually achieving the stated goal of their protest (whatever that may be). But if someone launched an unwarranted physical assault on a police officer with the same unrestrained hostility as the verbal assault Coalition launched here, they should count themselves lucky if all they get for their troubles is a bloody nose and a night in jail.

Are some of the physical altercations caused or provoked by the police? Certainly. All of them? Not a chance.