G20 demonstrations

I'm really not sure how I feel about this.

Yes the officer was over the top and yes an innocent man died as a consequence. This is terrible.

I am concerned for the officer as none of us can imagine what it means to be controlling a potentially dangerous situation such as this, not the feelings entailed, the 'pumping-up' of officers beforehand, what it is to know the danger of previous riots and the physical damage that has occured to officers in the past. Surely an aggressive stance is the only one to be had when you are in a vastly outnumbered minority trying to keep ahold of a situation.

I am concerned about police ability to control crowds in the future. What this ruling will mean for individual officers who will, in the future, hesitiate before defending themselves (for example - I know this isnt the case here) in potentially serious situations. How extreme protestors could use this presedent (legal knowledge is not great so I'm not sure this is a presedent, but it is at the very least a show that there is a limit to the police's infallibility under riot situations) to further their cause and use officers rage/hesitation/etc to their own means.

Take all that, the worry about what effect this will have on policing protests in the future - and temper it with the worry about police behaviour if it's shown that they can get away with unprovoked and unwarranted attacks on members of the public.