It’s always nice to be reminded that police are more interested in spreading violence against unarmed protestors than in trying to correct their own institutional flaws. Pushing and shoving. Running people down on horseback and in cars.

I dislike police in general. I know some decent individuals who happen to be police and can only hope that their decency isn’t eroded by a profession that protects murderers and rapists and thieves and lesser forms of tinpot tyranny. My more realistic side isn’t holding my breath.

As a privileged white male I don’t have as much cause to fear them as a clear and present peril to my life, but I’m aware, with each unjustified act that they take, punished or much more often unpunished, that none of us is totally safe from being snuffed out at a moment’s notice by a lawless gang that regularly gets away with cowardly murder. Or rape. Or destroying people’s livelihoods on a whim. Or because they burn plants. Or because they match a description. Or because they’re at home and a SWAT team has the wrong address. Or because they’re having a bad day and dig up any number of rules and regs that are often left unnoticed.

Never mind that there are far bigger criminals who do their lawless deeds in the light of day. One of them likes to urge people to hurt our fellow citizens and threaten them with weapons and death. One who has made it ok for “fine people” to openly hate again. One who urged compromise to armed protestors who are sick of the privations caused by this pandemic that is still killing people and crippling our economy, and swift punishment to unarmed people who are tired of watching people be killed for the crime of being black at the wrong place and time. Our president, duly elected, is openly rooting for violence against his own citizens. And too many people are just fine with that.