G20 demonstrations

@horatio

Please, you're incorrect in seeing A as irrelevant. If the circumstances were different, I might certainly have said that the trial should be open and public. The 'if this case' part of my statement is quite crucial. If incidents like these lead to convictions for policemen, and the end of their careers, it could very easily open the floodgates for future allegations against policemen who, in any other circumstance, would just be doing their job, something made increasingly difficult by the prevalence of amateur cameramen, who are looking to sell their tape to news organisations., and protesters, who think because the eyes of the world are trained on them, they can get away with more confrontational behaviour.

I am arguing that B is not bad. A doesn't matter (the "if" statement), because B is not bad. In fact, what you argued for instead (internal investigations) is much worse than B.

I do not think that prosecuting police officers should be a walk in the park, certainly not as easy as Ms Fisher had it. There were probably hundreds of similar incidents on April 1. Do you think they should all the officers involved should be taken publicly tried for professional misconduct, or would you not rather have them internally disciplined, and then possibly have regulations modified for policing at future protests.

You're just repeating yourself and/or missing the point (who cares about false allegations against policemen? This is a by-product of the legal system. I can make any allegation I want. If it's complete BS, it will be [most likely] found out to be just that. As you have already said, if they haven't done anything wrong what do they have to hide? [paraphrase]).

Anyway, I'm done. This has been an exercise of futility - I don't recall you responding to any substantive issues, only (poorly) arguing against the last thing someone has said. I'm out.