The police officers weren't justified in thier crowd control tactics at the rainbow gathering july 3

First of all, i would like to point out that all of my opponents evidence is from the "Colorado Legal Eagles". Who, in their mission statement state: "The Eagles are first and foremost Rainbows. The Rainbow is one of the many broad classes of citizens suffering discrimination. For many years the federal government has engaged in a policy of oppression of the Rainbow Culture. The Rainbow Culture enshrines the general respect for nature and believe there is no reason why humans can not live upon our planet without destroying it's life giving properties. We makes no apologies for these positions. The Eagles will assist the right of Rainbow People to continue the struggle for justice, to peaceably assemble on the land, to speak freely of their cumulative knowledge and experiences, and to demonstrate the value of this vision to others. Therefore, the Eagles find it necessary to oppose federal regulations designed to oppress and criminalize the activities of Rainbow. The Eagles are moved to utilize all means necessary and legal, and enter the political fight to defeat those forces of tyranny, and uphold our right to gather." There are many problems with this source, first of all, it is a group of rainbows, of course they would be biased towards the rainbowers and also, it says that they oppose all federal regulations. That said, i will now proceed with the Line-By-Line analysis Off of my Opponents first argument, He said that the officers feeling as though their lives are in danger was the original problem with this incident and that they should have kept their cool. My response to this is that the officers were surrounded by 400 Rainbow Gatherers, all of which were angry at them and could have easily caused bodily injury and harm to the officers. At any point this could have escalated and the Officers acted justly to stop any action of potential deadly violence, the officers used non-lethal pepper and rubber bullets. Off of my Opponents second argument, he states that a witnesses myspace page states that there was no throwing of stones by a large number of people. My response: First of all, ignore this argument, for 1 reason: we have no idea who this random myspacer is and there is no way to verify his credentials. Also, this person is most likely a Rainbow Gatherer himself since he was a part of that mob. This is one reason to disregard this persons claim, because he is just as biased as the Colorado Legal Eagles. Also, even if you do credit this "evidence" in the debate, My opponent still says that there would have only been a small group of people of throwing rocks, this small group though, is enough to justify the response of the officers. The officers were justified simply because assaulting the officers like the Rainbow Gathering Participants were doing, justified use of Deadly force, in which actual bullets would be used. The police were highly justified to use the non lethal force they did when a group of gatherers were throwing rocks which could kill or maim any of the officers. My opponent now brings up more of the evidence from the Colorado Legal Eagles, but i will answer it anyway. First, his evidence states that a woman was restrained and while put into handcuffs had her hair pulled back, just for asking why a man was being arrested. this is unreasonable to say that she was just thrown to the ground and arrested for nothing, the woman would have been told to back away from the officers before she was thrown to the ground if this was the case. The officers wanted to get in and get out with the person they were arresting and instead got surrounded by 400 participants in the rainbow gathering, which constitutes as a mob/riot which justifies police riot/crowd control methods. My opponent then brings up the idea of a constitutional right to stand by the officers and inquire what was happening. This is true, and this incident would not have happened if the Rainbow Participants would have only stood by and not interfere, but instead, the participants decided to throw rocks and sticks at the officers for no reason at all. That is not justified in the constitution, in no place of the constitution is it justifiable to start assaulting officers with rocks or sticks which could kill them. At this point in Harlan's Argument he changes my definition of Riot which was defined as "1. a public act of violence by an unruly mob & 2. rioting: a state of disorder involving group violence) into a definition of a Police Riot. At this point he has Conceded that the events at the rainbow gathering could be considered a Riot and he conceded my analysis that a riot justifies this type of response. You need to Vote CON Now for this reason alone! Harlan then brings up a definition for "Police Riot" because he felt it fit more accurately for this definition. his Definition was "A police riot is a term used for the wrongful, disproportionate, unlawful, and illegitimate use of force by a group of police against a group of civilians." This is not an accurate description for this event. i will break it down further though: first, it says that it is 'wrongful' use of power, this use of power was justified by my analysis above with my riot definitions and officers fearing for their lives and also, it was justified simply because the officers were being overrun by a group of 400 rainbowers and to prevent bodily injury, they stepped in to stop this mob. Second, his definition states that it is a Disproportionate use of power, if there was a form of disproportionality in this event, it was in the disproportion between the amount of rainbowers to Police. There were around 10 police officers and 400 rainbowers, that is a 40:1 ratio of rainbowers to police. In no way does this incident match the disproportionate part of his definition. Third, his definition states that a police riot is unlawful, this response was not unlawful because riot/crowd control measures are sanctioned by the government for these types of situations, especially in situations such as these when the use of deadly force is sanctioned. Fourth, his definition states that a police riot is an illegitimate response, but this was a completely legit and justified response as i have exabberated on above. This event in no way meets the definition of 'police riot' although it does classify as a general riot as Conceded by Harlan. Now Harlan talks about an "Ethical Justification" For this response, well, performing a simple google "Define: Ethical" query, i get the response of "conforming to accepted standards of social or professional behavior", this is completely ethically justifiable for this response, because it conforms to accepted standards of Professional Behavior, when a mob/riot begins, the police have a standard of responding with crowd control measures so it was completely an ethically justifiable response to this mob. Now he states that people were trying to be peacekeepers in this mob. If they were trying to keep the peace they would go back to their tents and not participate in the riot to begin with. he states "They pointed guns at several children and a baby" - This is not verified anywhere except for in Colorado Legal Eagle documents and blog posts, this is not backed up, and the officers would not aim to shoot at children, the articles probably make it sound worse than it is by saying this even if it was just a simple unintentional aiming, it wouldn't be intentional. next he says it isn't justifiable for the guns to be in the kid village, well, if the parents didnt bring POT and other drugs into the Kid village putting their kids in danger of getting high, there wouldnt be that problem... The feds may say the "rocks and sticks" every year, but that is because the maybe rainbows do it every year? think of that... And the campers arent justified on that round, it is national forest land, not public. -ajn0592