Protester Shot in Head, Run Over in Genoa

[Brad DeLong]

>I wasn't there, and I would not doubt
>at all that the police instigated
>violence, or committed the vast bulk
>of it.  But if a mob of people were
>throwing rocks at me I would have no
>compunctions about shooting them.
>Backing the car over the victim supports
>the presumption that the shooting itself
>was uncalled for, and in any case it
>was gratuitious & vicious.  The politics
>of this are not as clear-cut as some
>people seem to think.
>
>mbs

Say, rather, stopped your vehicle, smashed the windows with crowbars, 
are throwing rocks at you, and now someone with a large metal 
cylinder is running toward you to throw it into the back of your 
vehicle...

People get scared. Police get scared. And when people  think they 
might be about to die, they tend to shoot. Which is why a competent 
riot control authority should *never* have its front-line armed with 
live ammunition.

Brad DeLong