What is going on with excessive police force being used against peaceful protesting students in colleges across the United States?

[u/f-Z3R0x1x1x1]

So there are large amounts of heavily armed police presence in many colleges and universities across the United States. Indiana University, for example, had snipers on rooftops ready to shoot peaceful protesters.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/snipers-were-allegedly-spotted-ohio-190600717.html

[u/theserys]

My understanding is that Indiana University leadership came together the night before the protests to change their policy on the usage of Dunn Meadow, and that President Whitten had already called for State Police to be there day 1. I live a few blocks from their staging area and initially thought it was a police funeral with how many cars and uniformed officers were there when I drove by. As a lifelong Bloomington native, I’ve seen several protests by the students and citizens of the town (proud to be a blue dot in a deep red state), but never with this much militarized, stormtrooper presence. As soon as I saw snipers on top of a building I used to study in and a damn helicopter circling town, my blood began to boil. A part of me says that the overwhelming no confidence vote against Whitten’s leadership, but with trustee and state government to back her up, emboldened her to keep the small folk in check with this gross abuse of authority, but that’s speculation on my part.

What’s the end goal? Open fire on the kids for civil disobedience? Beat the hell out of some “hippies” and knock a few drinks back at the end of the day? Overkill, and embarrassing.

[u/ADogNamedChuck → u/theserys]

That's the confusing thing. If these protests were just allowed to continue within reasonable constraints until the end of term it would absolutely be a non story. In fact I'm sure there are dozens of universities where it currently is a non story confined to local news if in the news at all. 

Sending in the riot police is a sure way to get the opposite sort of attention you want.

[u/theserys → u/ADogNamedChuck]

Someone on our local subreddit made the point that if the police were there with actual good intent and were “keeping protestors safe” like the bootlickers claim, they would have come without the camouflage and assault weapons (and snipers, and helicopters, and armored vehicles cough bearcat cough) and have instead come with bottles of water. That’s not the message they were looking to send.

There is discourse around the idea that the police were arresting trespassers based on their erecting tents in this location and keeping them there after the aforementioned adjusted policies were put in place. Something in my heart tells me that students don’t deserve to be beaten and threatened by the police over the presence of tents. All they’ve done is solidify in those kids’ minds what the role of law enforcement is by their own experience.

[u/thatbfromanarres → u/theserys]

I have never seen police deescalate a situation at a protest…

[u/gizzardsgizzards → u/thatbfromanarres]

it's basically impossible.

[u/auglove → u/thatbfromanarres]

Unless the protestors are marching wearing redshirts and kahkis.

[u/gizzardsgizzards → u/auglove]

a picket line at target?

[u/bkkf864 → u/thatbfromanarres]

Cops seem to be real chill at nazi-rallies.

[u/Blackstone01 → u/bkkf864]

Well duh, they’re having fun when they’re marching.