Chicago is not a liberal town.

. . .suburbs all over the metropolitan area, so your point is?

Chicago is not a liberal town.

Saw a video of about 200 cops in war-gear with batons. And that was just in one small space, so imagine such scenes were all over town.

My question is: What were they afraid of?

You know, like the 3 who were arrested were planning? Something like that would cause a stampede -i.e. riot.

So you are saying the cops are in total fear of a few people?

Didn't they already have custody of the 3?

And may you also be claiming that if the cops were not there, there would have been riots?

I'm not at all saying the cops were afraid of 'a few people'. That's ridiculous. I said that if someone threw a Molotov cocktail in a crowd of thousands, that would likely start a riot.

Do you agree with that?

On edit: we may be on different pages with this. You said you saw cops 'in a small space'. I was talking about the cops trying to hold back the thousands of protesters.

I doubt the cops deployed officers to places they had no need to be but I don't know the specific example you cited.

Yes a molotov cocktail would. Duh!

Lets say that happened and the crowd turned on the cops who wouldn't move. What would the cops do then? They'd beat the crowd back leading to more riot.

This seems to me to be the best reason for fear of the people: That the cops accidentally get in the way.

Therefore cops presence should be more heard and less seen. If cops are not there to get beat up on, they can't be beat up on.

IOW: Less cops is best cops!

I don't know what kind of decision-making goes into these things. I suppose planning for the worst-case scenario is prudent? Maybe that was the thinking?

You can love the police as much as you want, but every police force is a command organization. Orders come from above, and must be followed. If a group of cops is not being as violent in their suppression of Democracy as their bosses want, either they'll receive "get tougher" orders or another group of not-so-friendly cops will be put in their place.

The people who give the cops at the top their orders really don't like protesters much at all....

Now you're proud of him, too eh?

The CPD chose *not* to push around the protestors.

- No tear gas
- No pepper spray
- No dogs
- Only one attack on protestors because they refused to stop blocking a street that needed re-opened
- Light (not full) body armor during that attack

And how did the protestors respond?

- Zero property damage
- No molotov cocktails
- No rocks, etc
- With the exception of the one time they refused to vacate a street, they pretty much obeyed the rules. The vast majority of arrests resulted from that one clash.

The Chicago Chief of Police has been all over the local airwaves crediting his officer's restraint and willingness to assist the protestors for the peaceful results. The media keeps replaying a single barricade body surfing back and forth between the two sides because, well, that's pretty much all they got to show. While protestors are criticizing the CPD for the single clash because, well, that's pretty much all they have to complain about. Another plus to their being handled with kid gloves.

I have noticed in the past that protests in Chicago seem really tame. I had opined that the CPD either learned a lesson from '68 or are trying to live down '68. Judging by the comments from the Chief of Police all weekend, it sounds like he is one who learned a lesson.

The C police did exercise, relatively, a great deal of restraint and near complete non-violence. See? Non violence leads to non violence.

Other cops should take note.

while themselves under attack (documented in numerous places):