Questions Emerge Over Police Conduct in St. Paul

Today, an article by the New York Times brought up questions about police conduct. City officials basically appointed two federal prosecuters to analyze the strategies used by the police before and during the political conventions that were held. Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul police department, said "Monday that the officers had performed well in unusual conditions, sometimes facing hundreds who he said were intent on disrupting the convention or damaging property." Obviously he tries to defend his fellow co-workers and tries to justify that the action that was used was necessary which he implies that no serious injuries occured. Most of the demonstrations were considered to be peaceful, but a small masked group crossed the line and caused serious damage. As a result to the chaos, many people were arrested, tear gas, or pepper sprayed to quite the public. Dave Thune, a St. Paul city councilman, said “When clearly the bulk of the peaceful people weren’t joining in a riot, why did we have to go to the extent of using tear gas and percussion grenades?” due to the overflow of complaints. The truth is, innocent people that did not contribute to the riots, but were only onlookers or journalist were also arrested because they were around the area of the riot. When it comes to that point, police action is going out of hand.
This article deserves our attention due to the fact how far U.S. government is willing to take to make the U.S. a stable place to live in (part of the Madison theory). The American public will look at policeman a different way, which would link to the government and the American public will soon associate the whole government system as unfair. The major problem about this is that Americans may look at this situation in a narrow-minded point of view and blame the government for not controlling the police force, but people have to consider the fact that police action is usually necessary to keep structure in the society and prevent it to get out of hand. People fail to realize which side started this, police wouldn't necessarily go out of hand for no reason unless the public does.
This article can be found on the New York Times.