Dan Wolken

[Johnson85]

So because an individual is opposed to Trumps policies/behavior they're immediately discredited? That's over half the country pal. But most recently they reported as fact this: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...fa-provocateur

I'm sure most people saw the video of the elderly gentleman getting his head smacked to the ground by the police-they're trying to tie him in as some sort of domestic terrorist. This guy was doing nothing wrong. Peacefully protesting and they tried to smear a man that was simultaneously in critical condition at the hands of those paid to "protect and serve". If that's not troubling to you or anyone else here, I'll see my way out.

That was troubling, but it's also one of those things that are inevitable once you put officers in the situation of using a skirmish line to clear an area.

It's not clear what he was doing with his phone. Presumably he was using his hand with his phone to point or draw attention to something, but and the officer overreacted. I can imagine having a protester reaching toward an officer's belt is a little bit alarming for officers. If it weren't for the protester's age, I think many people would view his reaction as fairly reasonable. There are going to be things that go wrong when you have interactions between police and citizens, and it looks like this officer made a poor judgment call in the moment (assuming the old man wasn't actually trying to skim information, which I'm not sure if that's really even feasible or a reasonable concern for the officer to have had). It also looks like the old man made a poor judgment call, as if you're not nimble enough to break your fall at all, you probably shouldn't advance on a skirmish line. But if there is somebody that needs to lose their job, it's the person that made the call to use a skirmish line to clear the area. Either that was a good call or not, but once it was made, it's more or less inevitable that there are going to be bad things happen unless the citizens obey and disperse.