http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/28/1380894/-How-Balt-Riot-Police-Helped-Spark-the-Rioting-The-Psychology-of-Militarized-Police-Crowds?detail=email
These don't look like cops, they look like an invading military force. How would it make you feel if large numbers of police that looked like this suddenly showed up in your local town or community on a day when you and other residents were dealing with the grief of a family's loss caused by the very same police force? What did the appearance of heavily armed, paramilitary style police units in the neighborhoods tell the people who live in West Baltimore about what the "authorities" expected to happen?
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is taking a lot of heat for not having a more "robust" police response and presence, but I suggest to you that more police and more police "force" would not have staved off yesterday's riot. The problem wasn't a lack of police, but the presence of too many police deployed as military units with the aim of intimidation, i.e., by sending an implicit threat of violence against unarmed civilians should "things get out of hand."
In short, the very nature of the police who were "deployed" in this manner begged for a violent reaction from the residents of West Baltimore, people already highly charged emotionally by the events of the past 15 days since Freddie Gray was arrested and fatally injured in the custody of "Baltimore's Finest" back on the morning of April 12th. To understand why the presence of large numbers of police in their full riot gear helped spark the rioting, it is necessary to examine the the psychological effect of large crowds faced by exactly this type of police response.
you don't go aggressive at an angry crowd you invite altercation starting verbally then a false start and bullets and batons fly. whose to blame freedom to assemble peacefully goes out the window and fear or maybe just a show of defiance to their authority supposed or legal either or a statement of "who's the boss". is the intention under any means necessary. we did not hear reports unlike Ferguson on threats to kill protesters and profane expletives from the police or tanks and 50 cal machine guns.
riot gear can be just as intimidating perceptions of what's to come looking back at prior protest for same reason dead Black teenager. in the midst of recent police and Black encounters they haven't turned out as well as we would have liked so to enter into the perimeter of those past events are you not forgetting history and running the risk of repeat hence the riot gear???
