Police Brutality in “Insert” Country

When you read the news from across the world you see the same head lines

Police Brutality in… Hong Kong, Canada, USA, Belarus… wherever there’s a protest.

While the violence is the same, the cultural and social interpretation of police violence is different. In non-western countries, such as Hong Kong, it’s marked as a human rights issue. Because it is a human rights issue, it gives way to economic and political sanctions.

Would not the police brutality happening in America also be human rights violation? Would other nations band together to condemn the violence that is happening in the streets across USA?

When we see the same issue across the globe, it is a distraction to view it politically. Police brutality has no colour, no race, no political affiliation. It happens all over the world.

So then it begs the question, what is at the root of this violence against non-violent, civil citizens protesting in the streets. I believe there are a few reasons.

1. Minority of peaceful protesters are not peaceful protesters: In protests in Hong Kong and USA, I saw similar events. And that is, a minority of protesters actually seek out violence. They are the first to throw the brick and incite chaos. There are videos of young people in Hong Kong in hotel rooms gearing up for protests and having a laugh at it and are in it for the real life modern warfare experience, rather than simply voicing out their discontent. So it’s like having a few bad apples that spark the wildfire among an ocean of discontent and angry citizens. Once someone first start the fire, the police are no longer “serving” but protecting.
2. Not serving, but protecting with heightened authority: Police are called to do 2 general things, serve AND protect. Often times we see videos where police are friendly to their community, whether playing basketball with them, or helping out the helpless, they are serving the community. This is the image of a friendly cop that we have. But on the other hand, they are also called to protect. Protect citizens from the bad apples. But during the protest, and the spark is lit and you see several masked protesters damaging the streets, police’s mindset is to protect the public from the public. There’s no identified threat, as you don’t know who are the bad apples, so all become a threat. So often in the news you hear of the police’s side of the story, they are “protecting’ the public, from unidentified troublemakers that blend in with the public itself. At the same time, there are bad apples not only among the citizen population, but also among the police as well. Perhaps their violent and aggressive nature are ignited and they too are out for violence.
3. Escalation: The third and last step to ignite a protest into violence is escalation. By the time the police try to identify and crack down on the violent individuals with violence means, it’s fighting fire with fire. Then once peaceful protesters see injustice and join the cause.

The way to keep peaceful protest as peaceful protest is, in my finite and largely ignorant opinion, to work together to keep it peaceful. Police should support peaceful protesters to moderate and keep the protest organized. The moment they show up in a tank with rifles and pepper spray, it automatically puts everyone in fear, that this is a war zone. Act as peaceful moderators, and keep an eye out for individual bad apples, not the whole public.