The Scope takes a closer look at those riots during the FTAA summit in Miami:
It’s interesting that the numbers of violent protesters are always mentioned in news accounts, while the numbers of violent police officers never are. At least the NYT acknowledged that there were many more peaceful protesters at the demonstration. But take a minute to consider how different this reads: “Hundreds of police officers clashed with protesters just 200 yards from a trade ministers’ meeting on Thursday as more than 10,000 demonstrators held a peaceful march to protest President Bush’s push to create a free trade zone throughout the Americas”. There were at least 2,500 police officers in Miami. $8.5 million for police funding came from the Iraq spending bill just passed.
But there’s a lot left out of the news. I’ve been in a few large demonstrations like that before. I was one of the protesters out in front of the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, for the whole week. The opening night of the convention had the largest demonstration, ending in a concert out front of Staples Center, with Rage Against the Machine playing. When they finished, the police cut the power to the stage even though the rally permit lasted for another hour and there was still one more band to go (Ozomatli). Then the police started firing rubber bullets into the crowd. A few people had begun to climb on the fence (we were penned inside a fence in a parking lot), and the police responded by opening fire into the entire crowd.
There are always a few idiots in a large crowd that decide to throw something at the police. The media follows around the ‘black bloc’ people in hopes of catching some violent images, but for the most part the guys in black with bandanas on their faces (maybe to hide their faces, but also to protect themselves from tear gas when it comes, and it usually does) are peaceful and the people there to express themselves in a demonstration don’t like the few people throwing rocks more than anyone else.