And then what? The cop that shoved him away immediately called for an ambulance of course. And another cop went to the guys aid. Or maybe not.
We are on different wavelengths. You are saying how things are now. And how they are now, in this specific instance, is not wrong in your opinion. We are saying that the way the police reacted to an obviously harmless old man was wrong. We insist on them changing their behavior. We aren't saying, "consider changing your behavior" ; we're saying change your behavior now, or face serious consequences. We are tired of this bad police behavior and we won't put up with it anymore.
Actually, as has been reported, their training forbade them from breaking their line. The dude never should have confronted them anyway. Period. It sucks as to what happened... but don't challenge a marching line of riot control of cops after curfew. How fucking hard is that to understand?! The dude brought it on himself. This is not fucking rocket science PieZ.
OK. good point! Glad you brought it up. That's another thing we insist on: Police training must be changed!
Yah, same way, those who criticized Vladimir Putin brought on nerve agents. Same way Sakharov brought on exile from his homeland... Rules are Rules ... Same way Solzhenitsyn brought prison for criticizing Stalin... Rules are Rules. Rules are Rules. Don't talk back to a policeman even if he is violating your first amendment rights, and never ever touch a policeman; even if he is murdering someone. After all, Rules are Rules... And if your a policeman and someone you just gave a little push to has fallen backwards and cracked their head open on concrete don't break from your police line and go to his assistance. Rules are Rules... Martin Luther King said, "A Riot is the voice of the unheard" If we refuse to listen we will see fewer non-violent protests; more riots. Time for our police and public officials to become better listeners. "[there is not much] symmetry between a cancer cell and a normal one. Yet our state is similar to a cancer cell – with its messianism and expansionism, its totalitarian suppression of dissent, the authoritarian structure of power, with a total absence of public control in the most important decisions in domestic and foreign policy, a closed society that does not inform its citizens of anything substantial, closed to the outside world, without freedom of travel or the exchange of information." -- Andrei Sakharov