Riot Gear is for Riots

There's a story in this morning's LA Times about steps the LAPD is taking to minimize violence at planned upcoming May Day events.

First things first, the first thing being to demonstrate what an old man I have become, it's good that LAPD administrators recognize they were out of control and need to plan how to control themselves. Old Skybalon, who strangely enough would be younger Skybalon, would've said something like:
Hug the police
Comin’ straight from the underground
Young fellow got it bad cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority...

Whether I'm old or not, I think it's good that the po-lice recognize there are better and worse ways to interact with protesters. In this case, there seems to be at least an awareness of the differences among those walking with their kids, those in the media, someone carrying a sign, and someone who just threw ice at a line of cops wearing kevlar helmets and body armor. This may not seem like much but if you remember last year, cops were beating and shooting at anything that moved. We need to have some degree of sympathy for the difficulty of trying to distinguish between a woman huddled over her children on the sidewalk, an overdressed foreigner holding a microphone (which could be a weapon) standing in front of a camera and lights, and a teenager with empty hands (empty hands certainly indicate you just threw something). Add to the mix that these people all decided to be some shade of brown and you've made the job that much harder. But difficult or not, the LAPD seems willing to confront those challenges. In fact~, Police Chief Bratton recently said: "Now see here. Before we go running about killing people, we'd better make damned sure of our facts. A riot is an ugly thing, and once you get one started, there's little chance of stopping it short of bloodshed." So... that's something.

That said, two things stand out to me as incredibly problematic. One, the old "if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" chestnut seems appropriate here, maybe altered to say, "if all you have are sticks and guns everything looks like a minority."

No... wait. I'm sorry, that's not appropriate.

It's not appropriate because it makes the tools stand alone; it does not take into account the culture of law enforcement that sees the use of sticks and guns as the appropriate tools for protecting life. But wait, there's more. That misses the psychological tension that is created when one embraces an intensely defensive posture. It's a strange phenomenon that the more steps one takes to ensure one's security, the more threatened one feels, so the more likely one is to see provocation wherever one turns.

The second problem I see is the use of undercover cops in the crowd. They will ostensibly be there to quickly identify and remove troublemakers... What to say about that? Is it beyond the pale to suggest that the po-lice would feel justified in provoking or instigating problems in the name of safety? That said, if anyone reading this will be at Mac Arthur Park or Olympic and Broadway demonstrations this week: you will know them by their feet. Don't listen to any alleged protesters wearing cop boots.

Anyway, I'll be there with some students registering brown people to vote. It's almost as if I'm asking to be punched in the face.