Please Don't Offend the Protesters

This is copied and pasted from Patterico.

I was fortunate not to be among the LAPD officers dispatched to the Federal Building in West L.A. on Saturday, where they confronted a boisterous but mostly peaceful group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The senior commanding officers of the LAPD’s West Bureau, in a decision sadly typical for some in the department’s upper ranks, directed that officers not wear their helmets and face shields while manning a skirmish line and squaring off against the more provocative of the demonstrators. The helmets, officers were told, were “too intimidating.”

In this video, you can see a group of officers surrounded by protesters angered over the arrest of one of their comrades who had hung a banner from a traffic signal. You can also see one of those officers being struck with a protest sign. (I don’t know if this was the same officer who was later treated at Cedars Sinai Hospital after being struck in the head with a sign.)

I’m told that the officers ordered to wade into that crowd without the protection of their helmets and face shields were not at all happy about it. And you can bet that the senior officers who gave the order, if they were anywhere near the Federal Building at all, were in little danger of having their delicate domes creased by someone swinging a sign. It’s pathetic, but we’re getting used to it.

–Jack Dunphy

Hat Tip/Patterico's Pontifications