Charlottesville and the Car-Crash Policing of a Demonstration
Imagine for a moment that you have just attended your first political demonstration, a demonstration that had been billed as a peaceful event, but which had ended in violent turmoil. Picture a scene in which you form up at the designated location with your fellow demonstrators and suddenly find yourself under violent attack from counterdemonstrators dressed in riot gear, wielding baseball bats and metal poles and armed with pepper spray. Worse still, you witness one…