Oh, there's no doubt that the police acted like thug squads throughout this entire week. There's more than ample footage around showing them using excessive force at almost every opportunity. I could go to a few sites and find at least a dozen similar videos of the cops just up and firing rubber bullets at people, as well as using the guns that fire them as intimidation. I'm pretty damn sure that they're not supposed to point loaded lethal weapons at unarmed and peaceful civilians, so the same should be holding true for their nonlethal arsenal. That crowd that "advanced on the police line" with their anti-capitalism banner were being stupid, but they were more than amply antagonized by multiple officers pointing their guns at them from across the street, and at the turtle-like speed they "rushed" the cops, you'd be hard pressed to say the cops were actually threatened by some kids holding a sheet of painted bedlinen. Considering that LA's police chief got more than a bit irate at his own people for indiscriminate use of rubber bullets during one of those immigration rallies last yearish, I'll be interested to see if the nice police chief who was painting such a pretty picture for the press during the convention has the balls to actually take steps against his overzealous thugs. Absolutely there's no excuse for firing rubber bullets at people when they're peacefully walking away, and that goes double for the f**king teargas they were forcing people through.

As to the black bloc guy in the first video, I didn't even notice the other cop when I first watched it. At any rate, it's a little pointless since clearly no one taking initiative warned these guys that anyone with their faces covered needs to be staying 100% out of anything that could get them arrested, because that kind of cover is how agent provocateurs get away with making it look like a crowd has turned violent. One of the protesters should have grabbed that black bloc guy and shook him until he got the clue or threatened to arrest them (ha ha), because it was in the best interests of the protesters to stop him, be he cop or deluded twit.