A similar example, while not a raid, hit me closer to home a bit over a year ago.
I'm sure that if you follow US news at all, you heard about the looting and arson in Baltimore in the Spring of 2015. While the city was on edge in the wake of a citizen's death in police custody, there had already been some minor demonstrations and a brawl between protesters, baseball fans, and provocateurs downtown earlier in the month.
Then, on the day of the funeral held for the man killed in custody, word started to spread of plans for some sort of riot or mass havoc being planned later in the day. Later, authorities pointed to a digital "flyer" being passed around yet nobody investigating this outside of the police has found any source or initial copy of this flyer that dates before this was published in the media. Trust me, we looked.
In response to this alleged threat to public order, cops with riot gear and a freaking mini-tank showed up at a major public transit hub right as school let out. Transit was shut down and everyone was corralled into a small area next to a busy street and without a way home for hours.
Eventually, tensions got high enough that when the first pissed off teenager or whoever chucked a bottle or a rock, it didn't take long for others to join in. In the ensuing vandalism and arson, hundreds of thousands in damage was caused, people got hurt, the city was put under curfew for a week, and to this day, businesses and residents have suffered from the reputation gained (worsened?) that day.
Looking back, the part that really sticks out to me is how the whole thing was triggered (assuming you don't think it was a deliberate provocation) by some "social media flyer" that claimed some teens were planning to run around starting shit after school. This rumor summoned riot police, shut down transit, stranded loads of adults and teens alongside the road, and facing down a phalanx of police plus one armored tactical vehicle.
Would those shops and homes still been damaged or those stores been looted and burned in a wave of unrest without this rumor-inspired flashpoint? No idea. But it sure didn't help.
That sounds like poor police work as much as digital rumors being the problem.
When you're expecting a riot, concentrating a bunch of people together and removing any way for anyone to leave (even people not kettled couldn't leave due to transit being shut down I presume) sounds like you're trying to make a riot.
It sounds like they read the textbook on dealing with riots, but forgot to read the part where you're only meant to do it when people are actually rioting.
A spoiler is contained in the following reference.
This reminds me of Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex: 2nd Gig, wherein a single actor causes an AI to rotate military forces within a refugee area, with the explicit intention of increasing anti-police sentiment among refugees.
The world is a stage and, without proper leadership, crowds will behave in ways they believe are allowed within the hard constraints of the social order. This is at the core of the BLM movement, and a pillar of the Occupy movement: police must not view themselves as separate from the policed. For cybernetic reasons as well as pathos ones. Otherwise, from the perspective of the social order, the distinction between the two is error.
I actually did not miss this, I simply did not have the space to say it, nor was it relevant to the point I was making.
It is strange to tell someone you have likely never met that they have missed something, based on very little information provided to you. This might be a sign of a cognitive impairment on your part, or perhaps a broken worldview. I don't have time to discuss either of these points, but it may be helpful for you to consider why you believe you can "read the minds" of people over the Internet.
So the police received a tip or a lead that people were planning on inciting riots or mass violence, and people then went on to incite violence and mass riots? It sounds like the police response was validated.
How did the police incite a riot? Did they throw stones at themselves, break windows, and overturn cars? Were plain-clothes officers planted in the crowd as provocateurs? Are the rioters automatons with no control over their own actions, who are irresistibly compelled by the presence of police to start rioting?
The people responsible for mob violence are the individuals in the mob.
Ultimately, sure, someone can get up in your face and yell at you and try to get you to throw a punch but ultimately, it's your job not to throw that punch. I get that.
But in terms of maintaining peace and preventing brawls or riots, you don't want to go out of your way to instigate them. In this case, on the strength of an alleged photo being passed around (again, nobody has a copy of this photo dated before it hit the news), you had riot police shut down transit and corral hundreds of teenagers for hours, unable to leave because you were worried that some teenagers were planning to start trouble.
Watching it all unfold was very frustrating at the time. Basically, the riot cops were there before there was a riot and where there likely wouldn't have been one until they rounded up these hundreds of people and kept them there for hours.
My point isn't that it's someone else's "fault". It's that digital rumors and overreaction to them can be counterproductive if the goal is to keep the peace and not escalate. Just as in my earlier analogy, if you eventually get fed up at the guy screaming threats in your face and punch him, sure, you were the one who threw the punch. But I don't really want to have the screaming guy on my payroll as a guy hired to prevent fights either.
I'm sure that if you follow US news at all, you heard about the looting and arson in Baltimore in the Spring of 2015. While the city was on edge in the wake of a citizen's death in police custody, there had already been some minor demonstrations and a brawl between protesters, baseball fans, and provocateurs downtown earlier in the month.
Then, on the day of the funeral held for the man killed in custody, word started to spread of plans for some sort of riot or mass havoc being planned later in the day. Later, authorities pointed to a digital "flyer" being passed around yet nobody investigating this outside of the police has found any source or initial copy of this flyer that dates before this was published in the media. Trust me, we looked.
In response to this alleged threat to public order, cops with riot gear and a freaking mini-tank showed up at a major public transit hub right as school let out. Transit was shut down and everyone was corralled into a small area next to a busy street and without a way home for hours.
Eventually, tensions got high enough that when the first pissed off teenager or whoever chucked a bottle or a rock, it didn't take long for others to join in. In the ensuing vandalism and arson, hundreds of thousands in damage was caused, people got hurt, the city was put under curfew for a week, and to this day, businesses and residents have suffered from the reputation gained (worsened?) that day.
Looking back, the part that really sticks out to me is how the whole thing was triggered (assuming you don't think it was a deliberate provocation) by some "social media flyer" that claimed some teens were planning to run around starting shit after school. This rumor summoned riot police, shut down transit, stranded loads of adults and teens alongside the road, and facing down a phalanx of police plus one armored tactical vehicle.
Would those shops and homes still been damaged or those stores been looted and burned in a wave of unrest without this rumor-inspired flashpoint? No idea. But it sure didn't help.