Double Standards

When a police officer kills someone for no reason, we are all expected to show understanding and give him the benefit of the doubt, but when a police officer is in the midst of a crowd of people who may or may not be dangerous, he is not obliged to show us the benefit of the doubt. The media will always side with the police officer:

"The protests began peacefully about 3:30 p.m. with about 500 people gathering at the Fruitvale station where the shooting occurred last week, Thomason said.

Soon, a group of about 150 protesters surrounded a police officer. Fearing for his safety, Thomason said, 'the decision was made to use chemical agents to protect that police officer.'

The crowd calmed down, but then a contingent of protesters turned violent again, smashing windows and setting cars on fire, he said. Police tried to disperse the crowd and warned five times that anyone who didn't leave would be arrested."

So, if a group of citizens were surrounded by police officers and decided to preemptively attack them even though the police officers were peaceful, would CNN report on it the same way? Oh wait, we would be the "rioters" referred to in the article. A fascist is a fascist...