Exactly, we have shown these people that no matter what they do we won’t hold them accountable. That needs to change otherwise we’re headed somewhere I don’t want to go.
...hence these very protests. And thus the outsized extra-legal response.
This is a gang war, fundamentally. Cops view the protest movement as an existential threat (and strictly, they're not wrong) and are going to use whatever tools they can find to fight it. They aren't trying to enforce the law, they're trying to put down their enemies.
Don't the police already use kid gloves to handle most of the situations? I've been watching livestreams of these for a solid year now and that seems to be a common theme: the police are in general far nicer and accommodating than they could be or even should be.
The dramatic brush you're painting this with is extremely unrealistic.
